


In Loco Parentis

by RedHorse



Series: Dear Lily [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (sort of), (those last two live together), AU (Lily lives), American Harry, Gen, Letters, Lily Evans Potter Lives, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Pre-Slash, Remus Lupin Lives, Sirius Black Lives, Sorting Hat theories, Soul Magic Theories, World Travel, and a random visit to Taos NM USA, at all, or any other canon plot points from book 1, pre-teen Politics, really has nothing to do with the sorcerer's stone, sorry but, there are rituals instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-21 11:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 36,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13739820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedHorse/pseuds/RedHorse
Summary: On his first morning at Hogwarts, Harry lay in bed, two cool fingers pressed to the scar on his forehead. His scar had hurt at the welcome feast the night before; not for the first time, but the burning, pulsing sensation was new enough that it still unsettled him, and he thought again that he should probably have told his mother. It was the kind of thing she would want to know. He hadn’t told her when it happened in Diagon Alley. A part of him had thought that it could just be a head ache, brought on by the excitement of seeing the wizarding district for the first time. Another part of him worried that his mother would seize any excuse to keep him home from Hogwarts, Harry’s victory on that subject being so recent, and so hard fought, that he couldn’t trust it yet.Lily survived, and she's a dedicated mom and a smart, powerful, forward-thinker with the benefit of knowledge and understanding of both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and histories. Meanwhile, Harry is eleven and involved only in age-appropriate heroic endeavors, including feats of inter-House unity and pre-teen politics.There is a short prequel that may fill in a few blanks.





	1. Harry Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Everything recognizable belongs to J.K. Rowling.

Dear Lily,

I spent the afternoon having a fascinating conversation with Thelonious Olmstead. It was certainly worth the wait and the dozen or so hoops we had to jump through to arrange the audience. Lord Olmstead did not have the fond memories of our Professor that Quirrell himself led you to believe in your interview before the start of the term. In fact, he described Quirrell as rather desperate to prove himself and prone to long and intense periods of depression when confronted with failure. During Quirrell’s apprenticeship, Olmstead twice caught him researching incidents of prolonged disembodiment and the relationship between body and soul. The second time, it was evident that Quirrell had all but abandoned the studies that Olmstead had assigned and authorized in favor of this darker topic. 

He was quick to assure me that Quirrell is almost pitiably harmless, though a gifted academic. It was clear he doubted Quirrell’s ability to deliver much in the way of a practical education in Defense to the more advanced students, but that he had a firm grasp of theory and had charmed Dumbledore as a student, so he wasn’t shocked to hear that his former apprentice was offered the position. 

Naturally Olmstead had no reason to be particularly alarmed by Quirrell’s area of interest. He did admit me to Quirrell’s old quarters, but they were scrubbed clean. If there was lingering malevolent magic or a scrap of damning notes or potions ingredients, I would have found them. I find the fact that he took such care to erase all traces of his presence concerning in itself. 

I am including on the reverse of this parchment the name and information of an expert in soul magic with whom Quirrell had corresponded. I wrestled the name out of Olmstead, even though he was obviously terrified to admit a connection to anyone of the sort. I think it best if you reach out, as I have the full moon to contend with and from the way I have felt the past few days, I can tell it will be a particularly draining cycle. I will owe the little energy I have afterward to Sirius and Zack. 

Love, Remus 

***********

On his first morning at Hogwarts, Harry lay in bed, two cool fingers pressed to the scar on his forehead. His scar had hurt at the welcome feast the night before; not for the first time, but the burning, pulsing sensation was new enough that it still unsettled him, and he thought again that he should probably have told his mother. It was the kind of thing she would want to know. He hadn’t told her when it happened in Diagon Alley. A part of him had thought that it could just be a head ache, brought on by the excitement of seeing the wizarding district for the first time. Another part of him worried that his mother would seize any excuse to keep him home from Hogwarts, Harry’s victory on that subject being so recent, and so hard fought, that he couldn’t trust it yet. 

He would tell her eventually, Harry thought, and went down to breakfast, lost in the excited chatter of his house mates. 

Harry’s snowy owl, a gift from his mother for his eleventh birthday, was easy to spot even in the midst of the dozens of owls that swept in from the owlery during breakfast that first morning in the Great Hall. Harry watched her descend, a small scroll sealed with bright red wax secured against her leg with the yarn-like charmed string his mother had always told him to use. It wouldn’t break, or come untied without intent, but which also wouldn’t tighten or tangle against an owl’s delicate leg. 

Harry opened the scroll hurriedly, before he could hesitate, a little nervous as to what he would find. He thought he knew what it would say, but what he read there instead was something of a surprise. 

_“I’ll tell you my house when you tell me yours!”_ he had said to his mother when they parted, after receiving her final instructions: to write that first night and let her know how he had settled in – and “anything else that might be noteworthy,” added with a wink. 

He’d been sure that he had deduced from Sirius’s stories that his parents were somewhat star-crossed, with very different friends and connections, the first several years of school. So he’d assumed that had to mean they were in separate houses. And then it had been logical to assume his mother would have been in Ravenclaw or Slytherin, because she was the smartest and most accomplished person Harry could imagine. 

Her note had none of the formality of a letter, which wasn’t new. Sometimes she sent him elaborate sketches that made him laugh, or a few lines of poetry that she described as making her think of him; or a funny story she had overheard, with no introduction or explanation. This time, she had drawn a lion, a serpent, a badger and an eagle, fairly realistic and all charmed to move. As Harry watched, the lion yawned, then batted at a squiggly line that appeared above its head. When its paw made contact with the line, it transformed into four letters: LILY. 

Then all four animals cocked their heads and blinked at Harry expectantly, before Lily’s name disappeared and the animation started over again. 

Gryffindor! For some reason, he felt a little hollow. Maybe he should have hoped for Gryffindor as much as Ron Weasley had. Harry recalled the hat mentioning courage, the typical Gryffindor trait, according to its little song; but that had all been part of a circular, one-sided conversation by the hat, and it had seemed to arrive at Slytherin without a doubt. 

Harry looked down at the snake his mother had drawn on the parchment. His mother did like to show off. He made eye contact with the little drawing and then, uncertain, drew his wand and tapped the snake on its snout. The little figure had been coiled, but now it stretched down the page and left a path of letters in its wake that read, in a curving line, “I think the parseltongue was a strong clue. I’m proud of you, Harry. You’ll have to tell me all about your new friends this weekend; I’m sure by then you’ll have made loads.” 

Harry had convinced himself not to worry about the sorting, and certainly not to infer anything bad about any house, although he hadn’t been able to help observing some of the older students who already wore House crests and did seem to fall into general categories. For example, all of the Weasleys were Gryffindors (and Ron had been sorted there, too), and they had a noisy vivaciousness that Harry found charming, if a little unsettling at times. The group of Ravenclaws he, Ron and Neville encountered on the train were deeply immersed in a conversation about the interconnectivity of Muggle physics and Transfigurations, which Harry found intriguing if a little intimidating. Hufflepuff hadn’t made a distinct impression, if he was honest, but he had some familiarity with Salazar Slytherin as one of the few parselmouths in history, a subject he’d read about after his mother had told me that it was not, in fact, typical for people to speak to snakes. He also knew enough about the Voldemort war to be aware that a significant contingent of dark wizards in his ranks had grown up in Slytherin house, but the list certainly wasn’t exclusive. When the hat had sorted him into Slytherin, he had felt a little surprise and nothing else, until he caught sight of Ron, whose face was so green Harry thought he might be sick. 

At dinner, he had sat with the other first years and the Great Hall was so noisy he had barely been able to talk to anyone but the girl on his immediate right - Pansy - and the boy on his immediate left - Theo - and they were friendly, if anything a little shy about his scar, and acted just like any other kids meeting someone their own age, so he was reassured. 

Now Harry studied the message unfurled behind the snake, wondering if his mom would be disappointed, and if he would be able to sense any insincerity in the ink. Then a thought occurred to him, and he tapped his wand to the badger. Nothing happened. He tapped the eagle, and then the lion. Nothing, nothing. Apparently he would never know whether a more enthusiastic message might have appeared had he tapped them first. 

Harry got out his quill and wrote in the clear space at the bottom of the parchment. 

_See you Saturday. Love, Harry._

Harry rolled up the scroll, used some of the wax that was kept on the table for this purpose to repair the seal, and carefully reattached it to Hedwig’s leg. During this time, she had been busily eating all of Harry’s bacon, but he could only laugh and stroke her fondly. She shook out her wings and took off, restored, and he watched her disappear back toward the owlery before reaching over and taking a piece of bacon from Draco Malfoy’s plate. 

Draco was sitting directly across from Harry, and his jaw dropped open in shock. “I will _hex_ you.” 

Harry rolled his eyes. “You don’t know how.” 

“I _do_ ,” Draco promised, shaking his wand out of his sleeve, and Harry watched him, bemused, and ate the stolen food with no outward sign of fear. 

“You can have mine, Draco,” Daphne Greengrass sniffed, nudging her plate toward Draco from where she sat to his left, on the other side of Greg Goyle. The first years had by some unspoken rule been compressed into the portion of the table nearest the staff table, presumably the least appealing real estate. “I don’t like rashers. And I like strawberries, if you're willing to give those up.” 

Harry filed away the British translation for future reference. He was a little annoyed by the way his use of the American word for something seemed to grind conversation to a halt, even when the meaning was obvious from the context. He thought of the last salty bite as a rasher, and repeated the word in his head a few times for good measure. Draco, mollified, accepted Daphne’s rashers in exchange for his strawberries. 

“Thank you, Daphne. It isn’t that I take issue with bartering – only theft.” 

Harry knew Draco’s sort. He was obviously rich – it was obvious because he talked about it constantly – and he had a massive, at least partially justified superiority complex, which were the worst kind. Lily Evans Potter was a cunning strategist and a witch besides, so she hadd inserted Harry into several elite academic and extracurricular opportunities over the years that had led to him rubbing elbows with those who saw themselves as his betters because they didn’t recognize his last name and his family had neither a yacht nor a jet. So Harry was not entirely out of his element navigating Slytherin politics, or at least as much as he’d been exposed to in the past twelve hours. But always, in the past, Harry had a deep secret that shielded him from the worst of the insecurity of these situations: he was a wizard, and they weren’t. And what was wealth and the accoutrements thereof compared to magic? 

But Draco Malfoy was a wizard, too, and to hear him tell it, Malfoys were as powerful as Merlin and deserving of the same recognition. Harry really didn’t know enough about the various families to tell if he was being honest, but by the deference the other first years showed him, he thought Draco’s boasts probably had some merit. Fortunately for Harry, his Boy-Who-Lived notoriety meant that Draco wanted him inside his circle, rather than out. At least for now. 

Not all the Slytherin first years were old and “Pureblood” – a new term he’d learned in the common room last night and had previously thought only applied to pedigreed dogs – and Harry had struck up a friendly rapport with those kids easily enough. It was clear that Draco wanted attention more than anything else, so Harry tried to comply without completely abandoning his principles and acting like some kind of _sycophant_. 

“Sorry, Draco,” Harry said, and smiled ruefully. “My best friend at home always lets me share like that. But I won’t raid your plate again.” 

Draco blinked, not missing the comparison to someone with _best friend_ status, but clearly he didn’t want to appear too eager. He had very pale skin but right now it was highlighted by a dark pink mark on either cheek. “No harm done, Harry,” he muttered. Harry couldn’t help noticing that Draco didn’t eat Daphne’s bacon. Rashers. But Harry stopped himself from asking if he could eat them, too. 

*************

Dear Miss Evans Potter, 

Thank you for engaging our services with respect to the Fidelius-protected London residence you described during the consultation. Before we can schedule an on-site evaluation, we have additional forms that must be completed and executed by the owner of the residence, Mr. Sirius Black, Lord Black, for legal and ethical reasons that I am sure you understand. 

Based upon our meeting, and due to your thorough inventory of the property and expertise in the area of dark artefacts, we anticipate the following services at the following rates will be necessary to achieve the desired environment at the subject residence: 

I. Extract one (1) portrait (irate; ancestral; energy level: very high) 275 galleons  
II. Muzzle one (1) biting stair 40 galleons  
III. Relocate four (4) hives of mature pixies from attic to garden 160 galleons*  
IV. Stabilize eleven (11) sinking carpets 220 galleons  
V. Plumbing assessment  
(4500 sq ft natural space + 13,201 sq ft wizarding space) 500 galleons  
VI. Remove minor perpetual time loop (cellar level) 100 galleons**  
VII. Evaluate and seal 177 cursed objects (small) 1,770 galleons  
VIII. Evaluate and seal 62 cursed objects (medium) 930 galleons  
IX. Evaluate and seal 30 cursed objects (large) 90 galleons  
X. Hostile elf surcharge 150 galleons  
XI. Fidelius surcharge 100 galleons

*estimate reflects fall seasonal rate  
**estimate reflects current market rates of unicorn hair, essence of Murtlap and raw gold

Sincerely, 

Lark, Hammett and Engel, MPT  
Curse-Breakers  
No. 27 Diagon Alley, 4th Floor


	2. Harry Part II

“Oi, Potter,” Blaise called; he was considerably taller than Harry, as well as the majority of the swarm of first years between them in the hallway, so he caught up to Harry with ease as Harry slowed as much as the stream of human bodies would permit. There were points in the castle’s halls where the bottlenecking of traffic was so great the Muggle in Harry wanted to alert the fire department.

“Any last minute advice?” Blaise leaned to murmur in his ear as they walked together, a knot of Hufflepuffs dissolving around them instinctively at the sight of Harry, whose fame was less disruptive than it had been in the first week of classes, but not by a lot. 

They were headed for flying lessons, and Harry had strategically leaked (by “confiding” in Daphne, knowing she would tell Pansy, knowing Pansy would spread word widely and immediately) that MACUSA, the wizarding government of the United States, had not outlawed the “reasonable and supervised” use of charmed instruments and wands, and therefore Harry had practiced a portion of the first year curriculum over the summer, and knew how to fly. If he had been in another House, Harry wouldn’t have let the information out at all. He found his notoriety made him squirm, and he wouldn’t consciously do anything to inflate it if he knew another way to protect himself from the Slytherin machinations. 

He was strangely energized by experimenting with complex social hierarchy in the Slytherin ranks. Yet, inexplicably (at least for Harry at age eleven), when he was deeply immersed in this low-stakes scheming he missed his mother terribly. Specifically, he missed the way they could talk about silly things without protecting themselves from implications or accidental disclosures; how she seemed very interested in everything he said; bowls of ice cream and silly Muggle movies on the sofa when Harry had a bad day. He could also miss Uncle Sirius and Uncle Remus, less intensely, at these times. It would be nice to have a friend that felt like family, instead of like an alliance. 

Right now, part of the spill of students out of the narrow corridor and into the grassy lawn between the castle and the practice meadow outside the Quidditch pitch, Harry shook off his melancholy and grinned at Blaise. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he began, which had been his standard response when questioned about the rumors of his range of experience. But Blaise cocked a brow in a certain way, and Harry surrendered to his wish to be a little closer to someone. Harry’s bright smile faded into something more wry. “I’ve only flown a few times. I’m sure most of you lot have snuck out and flown as much or more than I have. My mom thinks Quidditch is ridiculous and that flying is dangerous and archaic.” 

Harry was only half sure what “archaic” meant, but Blaise was nodding. “My friend that goes to Bauxbatons had an older brother who taught us.” He smiled warmly at Harry. “I’m not exactly a natural, though, so I don’t mind pretending it’s my first time. My mother worries about me as well. She has actually offered me an increase in my allowance if I _don’t_ play Quidditch; she won’t forbid anything, but she has always been willing to incentivize desirable behaviors.” 

Harry laughed, and while he had never been paid to do or not do something in _cash_ , he reflected on a few experiences with his own mother and concluded that she and Mrs. Zabini might not have entirely different parenting styles. Then Harry realized that Blaise had admitted a weakness; a real confidence, even. Or had he? Maybe he was a good flyer, and he was testing Harry, to see how fast an evenly disproven rumor might spread through Slytherin, just like Harry had with Daphne and Pansy. 

But Harry wouldn’t talk about other kids. It made his skin crawl the one time he had done it, at a one-month-long space camp that was literally at NASA headquarters and so exquisitely exclusive that Harry wasn’t sure how even his mother had negotiated his admission. He had been so appalled by his own downward spiral into shameless jockeying that the sight of the NASA emblem or mention of Mars still made him feel ill. 

“Hi, Harry,” Ron Weasley said, appearing to Harry’s right and nodding uncertainly at Blaise. 

“Hello, Ron,” Harry said, smiling, but uncertain. “This is Blaise Zabini. Blaise, this is Ron Weasley.” The two boys shook hands, if a little stiffly, and Harry exhaled. Gryffindor and Slytherin were in several classes together, but there was less opportunity to come face to face in rows of assigned seats than here, assembled on the grass in the sunlight to wait for Madam Hooch. Still, Harry had exchanged a hello with Ron at least once a day between classes, very aware by this time of the deliberate tension between all kids Gryffindor and all kids Slytherin. Harry felt he had just enough social capital with Ron and Blaise for a civil introduction, but it was a relief to be proven right. 

“Well, well, well,” came Draco Malfoy’s distinctive drawl. He appeared with Crabbe and Goyle looming behind him and to either side like a pair of henchmen, and Harry was struck not for the first time by the absurdity of their knuckle-cracking. “I know _Potter_ doesn’t know any better than to sully himself with the company of a _Weasley_ , but I didn’t think you would be so easily led astray, Zabini.” 

A rush of blood reddened Ron’s face. Blaise looked bored. “Draco,” Blaise said, sounding just as bored as he looked, “your constant outrage must be exhausting. I don’t know where you find the energy.” 

Before Draco could parry with a targeted insult that would be sure to cause an outburst by Ron, which Harry would regret, Madam Hooch appeared with her whistle, and Harry’s racing heart abruptly slowed. He edged closer to Ron. 

“The quickest route to get under Draco Malfoy’s skin is to ignore him,” he muttered, and Ron, still blushing, shot him a wry smile. 

“No whispering!” Hooch demanded, and Harry savored his good luck in emerging from this last miscalculation unscathed. If he wanted to make ties with other houses, he was going to need to shore up what he was building in Slytherin first. 

**********

Mrs. Evans Potter, 

Yes, I am available to speak with you by firecall, any time after January the first, which is the date I am scheduled to return from my fieldwork abroad in New Zealand. International floo rates aside, I doubt the remote region to which my studies will take me will be equipped to facilitate the call. I did speak with Quirnius Quirrell on multiple occasions over the course of a sabbatical I enjoyed in south France. I am happy to hear that he is doing well and has referred you to my past research in the area of disembodiment. I am including in this parcel the three texts I composed as a result of these studies more than four decades ago; sadly, they never gained the popularity I had hoped and I doubt you would find them on the shelves of any book shop today, but I have a surplus of copies, myself. 

I have enjoyed immensely the first few chapters of your beautifully illustrated work _Rethinking the Dark_ , which you were generous enough to transmit along with your initial inquiry. 

My sincerest well wishes, 

Damien Olyphant 

**********

Harry had been at Hogwarts for four weeks, which meant this was the fourth time he had met his mother in an empty classroom in an empty wing of the castle, listening to the eerie, empty ring of his footfalls against the silent stone passageway. But it was the first time that silence was broken by a murmur of voices before he even reached the door to the designated room. Harry wasn’t supposed to eavesdrop, but that never stopped him. He was early; he had gotten out of Charms early because one of Seamus Finnegan’s more significant accidental explosions had shattered every desk in the room beyond the capacity of a simple _reparo_. He knew that his mother sometimes met with the headmaster or had a social visit in Hogsmeade with a friend in addition to seeing Harry every Saturday, but he knew the measured tone of his Head of House right away, and the idea of his mother rendezvousing with Professor Snape shocked Harry. He pressed his ear against the door and held his breath. 

“Harry will be here in a moment,” said Lily. She had a slow, deliberate tone of voice Harry had only heard her use with rude waiters and reporters in Diagon Alley. “But all I wanted to say is what I have told Dumbledore before: I know the Hogwarts approach to being _in loco parentis_ has been quite relaxed in the past, but I have higher expectations.” 

“The Headmaster mentioned your concerns.” Harry had not heard the Potions Master sound quite so…quiet, reserved. He remembered the tour he had taken of Hogwarts months before with his mother, and how Snape, then a stranger, had appeared in a doorway some distance from where Harry sat with his mother on a bench outdoors. Harry remembered the way Snape had looked at his mother, and he was certain he had never seen a trace of that expression since. But if the door was transparent, Harry thought he might see it now. An openness that could be heard in his voice, too. 

“If Harry is creating a problem, or if someone is creating one for him, I expect to be told.” 

“Keeping any parent apprised of such matters is consistent with my approach to the task of Head of House.” 

There was a long pause. Even outside the room, sheltered by the door, Harry felt a wave of uneasiness. Then Lily said, “How much time have you spent with Professor Quirrell?” 

“Very little,” Professor Snape said, and Harry detected a note of curiosity in his voice now, tempering the blank tone from moments before. 

“I see,” Lily said. Then, “Harry, you can come in now.” 

Trying not to blush too furiously, Harry hung his head and opened the door. His mother sat in a chair facing Snape, and presumably Snape had been sitting as well before the door opened, but now he stood and fixed a vibrant glare on Harry that made Harry feel like he’d interrupted a less innocent conversation than the one he had overheard. 

Lily rose and embraced Harry, and he felt a surge of relief that she didn’t seem to be angry. Still, with Professor Snape in the room he felt embarrassed to be seen hugging his mother for too long, so he drew back after a moment and looked at the floor. Lily left her hand on his shoulder. 

“Thank you for taking the time to visit with me, Professor,” she said to Professor Snape, and Harry glanced up through his eyelashes to find that the Professor was looking away, as though the sight of Lily and Harry standing there hurt his eyes. Without ever looking at them, he nodded and walked past them to the door, giving as wide a berth as the row of dusty desks permitted. The door close firmly behind him. 

“Did you know Professor Snape when you were at Hogwarts?” Harry asked. “When we visited the school this summer, Hagrid called him your old friend.” 

Lily gazed down at him, her dark red hair seeming almost chestnut in the feeble light of the class room, where she had lit only a few lamps. Harry’s mother was youthful, and often mistaken for his sister. But she had as much composure as the oldest people Harry had ever met. The result of her constant example was that he was terrible at guessing the ages of adults. He knew his mother was thirty-one, so he tended to overestimate the ages of everyone else, at least if they were fairly serious in their disposition. Professor Snape’s mouth was bracketed with the frown lines of someone who had been grimacing constantly for a century, but Harry knew he was probably close to Lily’s age. 

“We knew one another before Hogwarts,” she said, very quietly. “His parents were magical, and of course as you know, mine weren’t. When we came to school, we stayed friends for a while, but it wasn’t easy in separate houses. Then, later…well, there’s more to it that I might feel up to talking about some other time.” She squeezed Harry’s shoulder. While she was talking, she had led him into the middle of the room, and now they were sitting side by side at a little table like they had on previous visits. The two chairs where Lily and Professor Snape had been sitting were in another part of the room. Saying she would talk about something “some other time” was his mother’s way of saying “when you’re older.” Harry tried not to roll his eyes, while a more worried part of him wondered what could be worse than the story of his scar, which he was apparently now old enough to know. 

“Now that you’re settled in, I don’t think I’ll come every week,” Lily said. “Unless you need something, and then you just have to owl and let me know. Of course, any time you need something, you should do that.” She was touching his hair like she couldn’t stop. “Any Slytherin drama to report this week?” She smiled. 

“Everything is settling down a bit,” Harry said. “Dumbledore gave a speech about interhouse unity, and apparently all of the first years are going to get an interdisciplinary project to work on as a group.” He paused, but his mother looked interested, so he went on. “Each group will have one student from each house, and we can choose our groups.” He blushed for a second, and Lily smiled. 

“I expect you have your choice of groups. A sympathetic Slytherin, and a household name, to boot.” 

“Well,” Harry said, glancing up at her wryly, shrugging. “Yes.” 

“What kind of a project is it?” 

“To devise a ritual that includes a potion, a charm, a shield, and a transfiguration.” He caught sight of his mother’s very still expression and hastened to add, “We aren’t permitted to practice the ritual. Only to research and create it, but we are supposed to use first-year elements. The Professors will choose finalists who have come up with non-hazardous and balanced rituals, and we will try to execute them in a controlled environment, and the team that does best will win.” 

His mother studied him for a moment, and he thought he knew what she was going to say. But then instead she said, “I’m glad we went to Taos the summer before last.” 

In Taos, Harry had learned a valuable lesson about the stupidity of experimental rituals outside a controlled environment, and he had also fallen irreversibly in love with authentic Tex-Mex, a culinary genre woefully absent from the menus of his rural Scottish school. After allowing himself a moment to mourn, Harry nodded. 

“A lot of kids will practice the ritual even though they’re not supposed to. But my group won’t.” 

Lily grinned and tousled his hair, a redundant act. “What are you going to win?” 

“Mom,” Harry complained, dodging her hand, but he couldn’t help but laugh. “I might not win.” 

“You will if you decide to, and act smart.” She paused, and though her expression remained serene, he could see something he wasn’t privy to moving behind her eyes. Harry’s mother was better than anyone at entertaining several thoughts at once. “It sounds fun,” she said, tone deceptively light. “It’s hard for me to believe that they would do anything novel at this school; it’s always been traditional to a fault.” 

“Between meals, the tables in the Great Hall vanish and there are tables and chairs and sofas instead, like a big common room for anyone to use.” Harry wasn’t entirely sure why this fact was connected to the special project at all. “Draco Malfoy says that it’s disgraceful to think we need space to socialize in mixed company.” 

“Mmm,” Lily said. “What do you think?” 

“A lot of other kids are spending a lot of time in there, and it would be nice to see some of the kids I met this summer and don’t see much now. Different houses make it hard, like you said.” He thought of space camp and swallowed hard, not sure how to express the next part. Lily waited. Eventually Harry said, “Some of the kids in Slytherin would give me a hard time if I spent much time there.” 

“It’s okay to focus on the friends you’ve already made in Slytherin. You can’t form a hundred relationships all at once, Harry.” Lily had told him before that she was not a Legilimens, but sometimes he doubted her, including right then, when she said, “This isn’t like it was with the boy at camp.” 

Harry was instantly miserable with shame, to know that someone other than him was thinking of his worst moments. He knew his mother had forgiven him, and loved him anyway, but he wished she didn’t know what he had done. He wished he could forget it. 

“Everyone has good traits and bad traits,” she continued gently. “And most people your age aren’t self-aware enough to recognize all of their bad traits, or to understand their conscience the first few times they really hear it.” 

Harry nodded, but he couldn’t look at her until he had a few moments of silence to compose himself. “Blaise told me he’s not a natural flier.” Harry and Lily smiled at each other. 

“So he’s starting to trust you. And you like him a lot.” Harry nodded. “There are all kinds of reasons to value people, Harry. Their ‘niceness’ is just one. And almost everyone is nice to people they care about, even if it’s not the way they are by default.” 

“You’re nice, by default,” he said quietly, and he thought Lily looked as surprised as she did pleased. 

“I fight it a little more than I used to, but yes, I think you’re right. We have that in common. It’s something that makes me proud, of us both, but it comes with challenges too. We have to protect ourselves, too, and the competing urges can be hard to balance.” 

The conversation strayed after that to lighter topics, and by the time his mother left, it was late enough that only the older kids were left in the Slytherin common room. Harry had made it halfway to the door to his dormitory when the kids in the common room suddenly got quiet. Looking over his shoulder, Harry saw Professor Snape, cool mask in place, his face lit green and sallow by the lamplight. “Bed, ladies and gentlemen,” he said curtly. He did not look directly at Harry. 

If he hadn’t been reluctant to call attention to his eavesdropping, Harry would have asked his mother what _in loco parentis_ meant. He certainly wasn’t going to ask Professor Snape. 

*************

Dear Lily, 

The Board of Governors was not aware of the novel educational concepts being implemented at Hogwarts this term. As it did for you and I, the information came as a surprise to nearly all of them. Taega White, who has always been cozy with the headmaster, claims that it was the new young DADA professor who came up with the whole "unity experiment," as you put it, including using the Great Hall as a sort of interhouse common room. 

I will pass along anything else I hear on the subject. Some of the board is up in arms, but most of that contingent were already Dumbledore’s opponents. As soon as the anti-Dumbledore faction disagrees with something, the others dismiss their own reservations at once in order to dutifully close rank against them. It does not appear that the unity experiment, whoever contrived it, will be stopped or obstructed. At least for the time being. 

Augusta Longbottom


	3. Harry Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So far, I have been writing an update every day. This has been as inspiration and time allow, so I can't promise the pattern will hold, but we're 3/10 there so it just might.

“I don’t know how they expect us to get excited about something when we don’t even know what we’ll win,” Pansy complained. Most of the Slytherin first years were assembled in the soothing green glow of the commons room in the afternoon, when sunlight pouring through lakewater lit large room so thoroughly the lamps were almost unnecessary. Harry was sitting at the end of one of the elegant and surprisingly comfortable sofas, his stockinged feet tucked under him, and his potions text book open on his lap. Harry had always liked potions, and it was obvious that Professor Snape was gifted in the subject. But his approach to academics was so distant from Lily’s matter-of-fact-but-affectionate style that sometimes Harry stumbled badly over concepts he had thought he’d already mastered at home.

Harry pretended not to be listening to Pansy, Daphne and Draco, turning a page. He glanced up briefly, though, to find Draco frowning at Pansy. “What is that supposed to mean? We don’t each get a copy of the House Cup to keep forever, but we still want to win that, don’t we?” 

“This is different,” Pansy said stiffly, but by her frown, she wasn’t completely sure why. 

“The House Cup is about house pride,” Harry supplied. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it, Pansy?” 

Pansy flushed, but looked tentatively pleased. Draco frowned, and Harry hid his smile. Any time he could distract Pansy from Draco left Draco with ruffled feathers. Daphne frowned, too. Harry remembered that girls his age had a tendency to select a boy to feel proprietary over, and made a mental note of Daphne’s sideways look for later analysis. 

“Besides, everyone will get a little excited about a mystery prize,” Millicent added. She was a serious, dark-eyed girl who was taller and broader than any of the first-year boys, except Blaise. Right now she sat in a chair beside the fireplace, which was crackling with low flames, as it always did. Even on warm days like this one, the dungeons had a perpetual chill. When she noted that she had everyone’s attention, she continued. “You can never choose a prize that everyone will like equally, but you can be sure almost everyone will be equally thrilled by a secret.” 

“It’s very Hufflepuff to think that the achievement of one’s House is somehow superior to individual achievement,” Draco said to Pansy, as though he hadn’t heard Millicent at all. Harry, who had spent a lot of time around very smart kids, was still mesmerized at times by Draco’s posh accent and diction; phrases that should sound unnatural on an eleven-year-old’s tongue rolled smoothly off of his. Annoyed by his own thoughts, Harry looked back down at his book. 

“So, you don’t care what the prize is, then?” Pansy asked, smiling indulgently at Draco. “Why would you? Your parents send you dozens of things every day before it can occur to you to ask.” No one pointed out that the only person to receive post at a volume to rival Draco’s was Pansy herself. 

“Precisely,” Draco said absently. Harry rolled his eyes. Of course, what could the Hogwarts staff concoct that Draco Malfoy would want, and be unable to procure for himself? While Harry was aware that his mother had access to large quantities of money through her work and his father’s family vaults, he also knew that not every first year Slytherin was from a pureblood family steeped in wealth. He noted several downturned eyes in the group and sighed, closing his book with a snap. 

“It isn’t as though you’re going to win, Draco,” he said levelly. “You can barely bring yourself to work with a Gryffindor for a single class period. Team dynamics are central to a balanced ritual, and since you can’t be on a team of four Slytherins, well.” Harry shrugged. 

Draco’s eyes narrowed. “That’s ridiculous, Potter,” he spat. “While I would never do so by _choice_ , I can make the most of mixed-house human capital if I must. What kind of a Slytherin would I be otherwise?” 

“Hmm,” Harry said, sensing a possibility but unsure how to grasp it. “Mixed-house, maybe, but what about mixed blood?” 

The room was very abruptly quiet. Harry had learned a painful secret about his house in the not-quite-two-months since he was Sorted. His mother would never have been placed in Slytherin, because Muggleborns never were. Harry, as the child of a Muggleborn, was a rare Slytherin, but there had not in the history of the House been a child of even one Muggle parent. He had yet to bring this up with his mother. 

“Most of the other houses won’t care about that,” Harry continued quietly. “They’ll be forming teams based on people they happen to know, or other kids they have a class with and find smart, at least at first. Then it will be just a matter of finding kids that haven’t been picked yet, a mad scramble. By the time you’re actively approached to join a team, the other three members will already be in place, and you’ll have no say in the matter.” 

Draco was still, watching Harry thoughtfully, his grey eyes dark, the way they were when he was weighing something. “I suppose you don’t care about any of that, either, Potter? It’s no secret about your mother, after all.” 

Harry tried desperately to smooth his own hackles, but his temper, famous to all who knew him at all, could only suffer so much. All but gnashing his teeth, he growled, “I wouldn’t talk about her if I was you, Malfoy.” 

Looking pleased, Draco leaned forward with a feral smile. “Strike a nerve, did I, Potter? Maybe you shouldn’t bring up a topic that is so upsetting to you.” 

Unwilling to play so easily into Draco’s hand, Harry swallowed. “What I mean to say, Draco,” he managed, tone deliberately cool on Draco’s name, “Is that the individual achievement you mentioned earlier is obviously going to be enjoyed by virtually anyone in this room but you.” 

“Anyone?” Draco echoed, smirking. “You mean _you_ , don’t you, Potter? You think you have this won, before we even pick teams.” 

“I think I have a chance,” Harry corrected, and had settled down enough to match Draco’s dark and quiet tone. “Unlike you. That’s all I mean.” 

The two boys stared at one another, oblivious to their slack-jawed audience, which had grown to include a number of upper-year students, Slytherins being as hapless as moths in the face of the flame of political machinations on any scale. 

“Well,” Blaise said brightly, breaking the spell. “Perhaps we should put our own wager on it, shall we? Slytherin house only.” 

“What wager?” Pansy asked. “We all have a chance to win, not just Draco or Harry. I’m not going to sabotage my own team over a Slytherin bet I can’t take credit for in front of the whole school.” 

“We don’t know what the prize is,” Millicent said, by way of agreement. “It might be really good.” 

“The bet will be,” Blaise said crisply, “simply whether Draco can make the finals. Surely that would prove you wrong, Harry?” 

Harry nodded, realizing that he had achieved what he had set out to do purely by accident. He mulled over the last few minutes uneasily while chatter broke out amongst his house mates about stakes and odds and contingencies. Harry realized bitterly that in the rush of anger that Draco had easily drawn from him, Harry had lost track of his strategy completely. It was only by dumb luck it had worked out at all. 

Then Harry looked up and unwittingly met Blaise’s eye. The other boy winked so rapidly and subtly Harry might have imagined it, and certainly no one else in the room could have noticed. Then Blaise turned back to the three first years who were trying to negotiate odds with him and raised both his hands in a gesture of amused supplication, and Harry wondered. 

Perhaps it hadn’t just been luck after all. Maybe Harry had made a real friend. 

*************

Dear Lil, 

I met the curse breakers today, like you asked me to, and walked through the house with them. They seemed confident enough at first, but feel they underestimated a few of the endeavors, especially relating to portraits and large cursed objects, and intend to send you an updated estimate. We also found out that one of the pixie hives is almost six hundred years old and retains some of its original membership. Pixies apparently gain strength with age, and it would take an army of better wizards than you and I to extract them by force. They offered to set you up with a pixie specialist who might be able to negotiate a relocation peacefully, but I took her information and I’ll contact her myself. You have enough on your plate, and it’s the least I can do, considering all you’ve already done to exorcise that dementor’s den. 

The next part is from Moony. Take care; we love you. 

Sirius 

Remus here. Just a quick note to let you know that I found what we were looking for in the second book Olyphant wrote. Too much to write here, but let me know when you’re back from your errands in the states and we’ll meet up. Be safe, Lily. It isn’t what we had hoped.


	4. Harry Part IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took me a couple days, and turned out short. My outline fought me a little - and won - but I expect the later chapters to come once a day since most of them are already written. I love your comments, and I’m still writing, so if there is something you would like to see or have addressed, let me know.

Harry was good at potions, but if he hadn’t known that about himself already, Professor Snape might have convinced him otherwise.

His head of House seemed to delight in poking holes in his students until they were sieves of confidence, and the worse they became the greater his delight. It was a trait Harry struggled to integrate into his perception of the otherwise cool, composed, undoubtedly intelligent man. Neville, who was doing well in so many other classes, confessed to Harry that he was so terrified of Professor Snape that he had nightmares about being publicly berated on an almost nightly basis.

Harry wasn’t entirely surprised. He had seen a couple of the weaker Gryffindors suffer the same treatment, including Ron Weasley, who had no talent or instinct for brewing at all.

Still, Harry hadn’t expected to run afoul of Professor Snape himself. Professor Snape rarely turned on the Slytherins.

“Potter,” Snape said on the first day of October, “I’ll see you after class.”

Blaise had been sitting beside Harry, as he always did when they were allowed to choose their own partners. He leaned toward Harry. “What did you do?”

“Nothing!” Harry hissed back. He wasn’t sure why he was so nervous, hanging back while the others filed out. He really _hadn’t_ done anything, so why was he feeling awkward and almost guilty?

The Professor was on the other side of the enormous table he treated as a desk, straightening the row of stoppered vials the students had left at the end of class so that they were evenly spaced and the labels faced in he same direction. He spoke without looking up at Harry.

“I understand you have engaged in a competition with Mr. Malfoy, relating to the ritual contest,” said the Professor.

“Yes, sir.”

“And why is this contest so significant to you and Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Potter?”

Harry had never liked the way Professor Snape said his last name. “Just a competitive person, I guess, sir.”

“You, or Mr. Malfoy?”

Harry blushed. He usually wasn’t so inarticulate. “I meant me, sir. I don’t know Draco well enough to say.”

At that, Professor Snape looked up, and Harry wished at once that he hadn’t. There was something about his undivided attention that made Harry feel small and silly. No wonder Neville couldn’t function in his class. “Do you mean that? I wonder. I know Mr. Malfoy quite well. I have spent time with his parents, regularly, since I was a young man. I have known Draco Malfoy since he was just a few years old, and now he’s one of my favorite students. Did you know, there’s a rumor that once, many years ago, a Malfoy was sorted into Hufflepuff, and he was disinherited the following morning? It wouldn’t surprise me if it was true.”

”Professor, I don’t...”

”Don’t interrupt, Mr. Potter. Lucius Malfoy would not appreciate seeing his son engage in a magical ritual with those he saw as unequal to Draco. Draco would have known that, and Draco is devoted to Lucius. Yet in the course of one argument in the common room, Draco has put himself in the unfortunate position of losing face with his father, or losing face with his House.”

Harry said nothing.

”None of this information surprises you, does it, Mr. Potter? You aim to rise high in House Slytherin. Your father would have been horrified.”

Harry stiffened. “It’s just a ritual,” he muttered. “You can’t tell me that winning a test against the entire year isn’t worth the minor, temporary bond from. According to the rules it’s a single tier ritual with only one secondary effect. It can’t produce much.”

The professor’s brows rose. “Well-versed in the finer points of ritual magic, are you? Well, then you know that even with a simple ritual, the magic will have a sympathetic response among the casting witches and wizards that can linger nearly a year. Close and lifelong friendships have been known to be built from much less.”

Of course, Harry did know all of this. He also knew that if Draco was so much as civil to a Muggleborn student, it would change the attitude of many a Slytherin, and make Harry’s life a lot easier for the next seven years. Harry bit his lip and held Professor Snape’s eye.

”That will be all, Mr. Potter,” Professor Snape said, sounding frustrated. After Harry started for the door he heard him add, very quietly, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Harry wondered whether he was supposed to hear.

***************

 My Dear Lily,

Augusta Longbottom passed along your offer to address some of our staff’s questions about raising a controlled environment. We understand you have developed your magical inventions in controlled environments as a rule, and received a certification from the institute at Taos Pueblo. We will be sure the staff is ready for you after your Saturday visit with Harry the weekend after next.

I am intrigued by your news about the interests of our Professor Quirrell. I agree that anyone with a particular interest in the Death Eater cause might anticipate that Harry Potter would arrive at Hogwarts in this year, and position himself accordingly. Whether it is academic interest or something more sinister, I do not know, but I have kept the close watch on Professor Quirrell that I promised, and have yet to observe a misstep.

Best wishes,

Albus Dumbledore

 


	5. Harry Part V

Dear Lily,

I ordered our port keys for the winter holidays. You know I’ve always wanted to attend the summit, but between one thing and another it never worked out. I’m excited that Zack is old enough now for it to be an option. As you had speculated, the pack ritual the evening of the full moon during the summit is still held, just without advertisement. I wish the US was still the Mecca for our kind that it used to be, but I suppose after all of the attacks two years ago it’s hard to blame them for adopting their own version of the Ministry’s restrictions. I’m told that MACUSA turns a blind eye on the summit generally, especially given the underlying goals of perfecting the ritual. We’re looking forward to it, and of course spending Christmas with you and Harry. You choose the place, though I’ll advocate for anywhere warm. Are there hot springs in North America?

Love,

Remus

P.S. Would you give us news of Harry? I know he must be busy, but he hasn’t returned our last two letters.

*********

“Ten to one?” Draco stood in front of the image on the common room wall that showed the present odds in Blaise’s betting pool on the ritual contest. His voice was dangerously quiet. Even Vince and Greg took several steps away from him, as though he might implode.

”Draco! I see you’re taking an interest in our friendly wager! Rumor has it that Harry has a meeting with Hermione Granger, and that she’s heard about his natural talent for defense and shields.”

”Ten. To. One?”

Vince backed into a green leather club chair that he clearly hadn’t known was there and nearly fell down. Blaise smiled serenely.

”Now, old chap, you know I don’t create the odds, I just interpret them. We know you’ve got Ernie McMillan committed, but hasn’t it always come down to who gets Granger in the end?”

Draco whirled around. “Potter doesn’t have anyone!”

”But he has a meeting.” Blaise winked.

“I would think,” Draco began cuttingly, “that in this House, of all Houses, people would have the self-respect not to lay wagers in favor of a Mudblood.”

”Malfoy, honestly, if you don’t know how to tolerate people your family consider their lessers at least in public, how do you ever expect to follow your father into the ministry? Or anywhere else?”

Harry, and everyone else in the room, looked over at Theodore Nott in surprise. Harry didn’t know when he had come in, but he was now standing near the fireplace with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, like he had to hold something in. His voice was tight and irritated. Harry was standing closer to him than anyone, and saw that he was upset enough to be trembling very slightly.

Draco looked at Theo, and Theo stared back without flinching, until finally Greg began coughing so violently Draco walked over to him to make sure he was okay. After Draco guided Greg into the chair next to Vince, some new resolve had formed on his pointed face.

Harry’s meeting with Hermione took place in an unfrequented corner of the library. It had been Harry’s idea to meet there, and apparently Hermione was so confused by his location of choice that she started the conversation there as soon as he sat down across from her.

”Shouldn’t we be meeting in the Great Hall? Isn’t that what it’s for?”

Harry couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or  just asking a rhetorical question. “It’s more quiet here,” he offered, unsure. “And I thought it would be more convenient for you. I hear you spend a lot of time here. And I know I see you a lot.”

Not that he’d ever seen her notice Harry, or acknowledge or interact with another person either. Even for a Ravenclaw, Hermione was socially reserved. Unlike the stereotypical Ravenclaw, she was also reputed to be overbearing and intensely bothered by challenges to her firm lead in each of her classes. Gryffindor was never paired with Ravenclaw, so all of Harry’s information was secondhand, but the Hufflepuffs had Transfigurations with Ravenclaw and Neville said her photographic memory and magical abilities weren’t exaggerated. 

“I detest talking in the library. It’s inconsiderate. Libraries are meant to be quiet.”

Harry colored a little and opened his mouth to respond, but before he could a handful of Hermione's Housemates walked past, speaking rather noisily to one another, and Hermione glared at Harry as though he conjured them to prove a point.

Harry cleared his throat, and very deliberately kept his gaze from flicking toward the Ravenclaws. ”So, then, Hermione, are you looking forward to participating in a ritual?” 

She folded her arms and sat back in her chair. “Of course I am. Ritual magic isn’t even in the curriculum at Hogwarts, though, so it seems an odd choice for an independent study. And we’re just in our first year, so I doubt I can find three other students who can actually pull off their element. I suppose I could brew the potion for a teammate and cast a spell during the ritual, but that still leaves two students who have to be able to cast well enough, and that’s still at least one too many.”

Her tone was matter-of-fact, but the words were so socially tone deaf Harry winced. Neville had also confirmed the rumor that Hermione wasn’t well-liked, and Harry saw why that was. She had the air of a girl whose books had always been in her friends and classmates had never hoped to impress or challenge her. She said what she meant and gave no thought to how it made people feel.

”I agree, on both counts,” Harry said. “But then, it’s also a group project.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste, and Hermione smiled, looking startled.

”That’s not unusual in Muggle primary school,” she said, matching his expression in sudden commiseration. “I guess I’m used to it whether I like it or not.”

”I was home-educated,” Harry said, and Hermione nodded.

”I knew that. People talk about you, you know.” She hesitated and Harry watched her struggle with her desire to list all the trivia her agile mind had amassed about Harry Potter and His Life and Early Education, and the unavoidable fact that Harry’s expression clearly communicated how poorly she would be received.

”People talk about anyone who’s different,” Harry said carelessly.

”No,” Hermione said with an almost unfriendly look. “If you’re the wrong kind of different, they don’t talk about you at all. Or to you, for that matter.”

Harry had thought Hermione might be the sort who didn’t mind not having friends, but in that moment he knew he’d been wrong. He was thrown by the new information, his strategy suddenly useless. He grasped for something while she watched, seeming pleased to have shut him up.

”In this contest,” he began, “it might be advantageous to have someone on your team with a wizarding background. They might be aware of spells that aren’t on the lists, for the advanced element.”

”And I suppose you have an impressive wizarding background?” She arched a brow.

”I would say my upbringing was more Muggle than wizarding,” Harry said honestly. He gauged it around 60/40. Pleased when Hermione subsided into a puzzled silence, he forged ahead. “Some Pureblood families even have their own family spells, never published outside the family libraries.”

Her expression hardened again. “And your father was a Pureblood, and the heir to House Potter, according to the history books.”

”My father’s parents made a lot of his inheritance contingent on him producing a Pureblood heir, so I’ll never see most of the property, including the library. And my mother is Muggleborn, like you.”

Hermione stared at him. “I thought you wanted to convince me to be on your team.”

”Another consideration,” said Harry, as though he hadn’t heard her, “is the deeper purpose of this unity project. It could be said that the real winner of the contest will be the one who can make the most meaningful ties between students of diverse background, and...”

”Harry,” Hermione interjected. “What are you really here to ask?”

Harry regarded her nervously. He was beginning to doubt the Sorting Hat; his experiments in Slytherin cunning were not yielding the results he anticipated. “Draco Malfoy is going to have a meeting with you, and I would like for you to convince him that he needs you on his team.”

”No.” Hermione said. She began picking up the books and notebook she had been looking at while she waited for Harry.

”Hear me out!” Harry pleaded.

”Look. Your three points are what they are, but the fact is I’m probably going to carry this project and do all the work, because it isn’t for a real grade so no one else is going to care if it’s any good. And Draco Malfoy has on several occasions referred to myself and other Muggleborns in foul terms that I won’t r-repeat, and...”

”I know how - well, I don’t know how that would feel, but I do know that it hurts me when he says those things, because of my mom, so I can only imagine that it must hurt you even worse. Please wait, Hermione, can’t we talk a little more?”

She folded her hands tightly over her bag and wouldn’t look at him, but she didn’t get up and walk away, either. 

“What I know,” Harry said softly, “is exactly how ridiculous all that blood superiority crap really is, because my mom is one of the more powerful witches I’ve ever met, and she’s advanced Charms as a discipline with her own original spells, and she’s just getting started. You...you remind me of her, a bit.” Harry found that last was not empty flattery, although he hadn’t thought of it that way before. “I think that all the negativity she faced over her Muggle family made her work even harder, to show that the people who called her names were wrong.”

”I’ve always worked hard.” Hermione looked at him finally, her expression guarded, but intent. “I know about your mom. Or, her spellwork anyway. Professor Flitwick mentions her sometimes.”

”Are you a political kind of person?”

”I’m twelve, Harry.”

“You have to start some time. I’m only eleven.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “So you’re really trying to force Draco Malfoy to spend time around me as a political statement? I know enough about blood laws to know they were all repealed after the last war. Unfortunately for the Malfoys in our country, Muggleborns aren’t politically disadvantaged.”

”The laws might have changed, but the politics are the same. Compared to thousands of years of history, just ten years of legal equality isn’t that long at all.”

”And you think one kids project is going to affect thousands of years of history?” Her gaze was sharp. “Or just the present atmosphere of Slytherin House?”

It wasn’t exactly the summer camp feeling, but it was pretty close. Hermione got up and left the library. 

*******

Ms. Evans Potter,

As Head of Slytherin House, it falls to me to inform you that Mr. Potter has received one week of detention for an incident in the potions classroom that resulted in what I would consider justified name calling but unjustified throwing of toxic potions ingredients by your son. The other child involved was Draco Malfoy, who is serving the same detention over the same period. 

Due to my responsibilities to Slytherin House, I believe I can divine the source of the conflict between Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy. Aside from the tensions you would expect due to Family background, the boys have developed an intense competition with one another over the group ritual project for the first year students. As is their nature, the other Slytherin students have eagerly fed the rivalry. 

If my letter gives rise to questions, or if you have input as to a better way of discouraging your son from escalating matters with Mr. Malfoy, you may reach me by return owl or by floo any evening after seven o’clock.

Sincerely,

Severus Snape


	6. Harry Part VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little longer chapter here that I hadn’t exactly planned. There are some original characters here who get a lot of lines, but bear with me, they aren’t so bad.

Harry stared down at his knobby, pale knees, sandy trainers, and the baked clay paving stones under his feet, and sighed happily. After spending the last few months in a Scottish castle in wintertime, it was surreal to find himself on a large rock heated through by the famous Arizona sunshine, on the cusp of uncomfortably hot.

“Time to reapply,” Lily said, passing him the sunscreen she had been smearing on herself. His mother was fastidious about UV protection, and even though Sirius and Remus kept looking at her funny, she always insisted on buoying the protective charms with the Muggle stuff, just in case. Harry didn’t mind, especially since he’d gotten into the habit of using it around his Muggle friends growing up, anyway.

“How much further?” Zack moaned, collapsing next to Harry on the big rock that had been positioned like a bench beside the trail. They had only been walking for an hour, but the heat didn’t seem to agree with Zack the way it did with Harry. Sirius, also, kept shooting resentful glances toward the sky, as though he could will it into a replica of the opaque grey dome over so much of Britain in December.

Lily put a hand on each of Zack’s cheeks, rubbing the residual sunscreen on her palms into his cheekbones in a business like way, then kissed him playfully on the nose. “Not much,” she said, then added, “Don’t whine.”

Zack rolled his eyes dramatically. He was tall for his age, nearly Harry’s height, olive-skinned with enormous, slightly slanted eyes that were a bright black-brown, and his very short hair was the exact same color and sort of stood up from his head in a very appealing way that had always made Harry jealous. Zack’s mother was from Japan and his biological father was from Portugal, but Harry would never have come close to guessing his parentage. And he was a werewolf six days out from the full moon, so Harry knew for a fact he had ample energy to scale a mountain, let alone walk another quarter mile along an easy footpath.

“Yeah, Zack, don’t _whine_ ,” Harry echoed. “Also, don’t breathe air or drink water. All three of those things should be equally impossible for you to stop.”

“ _Harry!_ ” Zack gasped, perpetually easy to rile up. He leapt up from the rock and, hearing Sirius smother a laugh, spun around to confront him. “ _Dad!_ ”

Only Remus was keeping a straight face, though Harry thought he saw the reddish moustache twitch for a moment. “Come on, Zack. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get something to eat.”

Harry didn’t point out that they had eaten breakfast a mere hour and a half before, or that Zack and Remus had each put away more than the rest of them combined. That, too, was typical for the lead-up to the change, and Harry saw the flash of sadness on Remus’s face that always confused Harry as Zack burrowed under his arm. Then they were walking up the path again, and Harry shook off the feeling.

There in the high desert, the air was so dry that even under the strain of a brisk walk and in considerable heat, none of them broke a sweat. Harry remembered it being warmer, and much less pleasant, but then his last visit had been at a different time of year, though he couldn’t really remember the month or even the season very well. Now, Hogwarts put everything into a linear timeline, but he had never had a true school year by which to measure his time before.

The mesa where the conference was being held spread out before them a few minutes after that, an immense plain dotted with large white tents, stark and clean against the red-sand of the landscape, and a smattering of the smaller tents of the many attendees, grouped into clusters in each campground. The buzz of a thousand voices rose through the air and Harry was excited right away. The last time they were there, his mother was having a private consultation with the ritual specialists at the Southwestern Magical Institute, famous for the study of rituals and secondary effects. But Harry has never come with his mother to attend their conference, sometimes called the ritual summit, and internationally known. It had never appealed to him before, but he realized now that he was about to be surrounded by magical people from all over the world, and the prospect was fascinating; especially considering how many spare hours he had spent thinking about rituals since the inter-house contest was first announced.

“We’re going to check in with the pack first,” Remus said, putting a hand on Zack’s shoulder. Zack stared at the spectacle of the conference with his mouth open, whining forgotten. “Send me a Patronus if you need us,” he told Sirius. Sirius cast a small wave at them as the yturned to walk away, and when he saw that Harry was watching, he shook the frown off of his face and replaced it with a more characteristic grin.

“They just know the wolves will have an all-day, all-you-can-eat buffet,” he told Harry, elbowing him companionably. “Do you have somewhere you need to be, Lil? Harry and I can wander around on our own if you do.”

Lily adjusted the beaded raw leather bag slung across her shoulders. It wasn’t as heavy as it should be, considering how many extension charms were at work and the number of earthly possessions Harry knew it contained, but it was definitely much heavier than it looked. She frowned thoughtfully at Harry. “Why do I feel like I’m letting two eleven-year-olds run off together?”

Sirius laughed. “Fortunately, most people find me very grown up when they have no idea who I am. No one will suspect anything.”

Lily broke her straight face enough to wrinkle her nose, then reached out and touched the top of Harry’s head for a half second by way of blessing. “Be careful,” she said, then made a little shooing gesture. “I’ll see you at the campsite at noon. I’ll wait by the sign.”

Harry was reminded of the general energy level of Diagon Alley as they walked through the trade tents where merchants were selling food, souvenirs, and even potions ingredients. More than one tent held owls in cages that could be rented for those who hadn’t traveled with their own post owl. The people milling along the path between the booths were an assortment of what Harry thought of as the New England wizards, who dressed in a colorful pantomime of the robes, pointed hats and leather boots that Harry had finally started getting used to in Britain, and the American wizards, who could have passed for eccentric Muggles in denim jeans or cotton trousers, simple button-front shirts and even the occasional screen-printed t-shirt. There were also the odd few in the traditional dress of nations Harry could only guess at, and the Native American magicals, who don’t like to be called wizards, in soft leather and beads.

“Do you know what these are, Harry?” Sirius leaned over a table made of a single slab of log hovering in midair, strewn with small objects made up of various bits of leather, fur and beads. The Native magical wore a sleeveless hide dress; its seams were intricately stitched with thongs of leather instead of thread and her hair fell to her waist. She was turned away from them, apparently haggling with a customer.

“No,” Harry said. Hearing them, the Native magical turned, smiling.

“See something you like?” she had the slight accent Harry associated with the few Native Americans he had met who had learned their tribal language before they learned English, an increasingly rare thing. She didn’t seem very old, though her face was calm and serious. There wasn’t a thread of gray in her hair; but of course, there were spells for all of that.

A boy - who looked almost exactly like the woman, except small, male, and with hair just to his shoulders - appeared suddenly on Harry’s other side. “These are signal pouches,” he told Harry, in a clear American accent. “A secret spell in our tribe makes them. Watch.” He reached toward the table, hesitated, then picked up two of the little objects. Harry now saw that the leather was a small pouch, perhaps big enough for Sirius to put his thumb inside, if that. A drawstring of dark-oiled leather cinched each one closed, a bead held the drawstring tight, and tiny feathers were laid into the leather with spellwork. The boy loosened one of the pouches, held it near his mouth, and said very clearly, “Danger.” He closed the pouch he had spoken to, and the second one, levitated suddenly about an inch from his palm. He seized it, opened it, and a puff of ominous black smoke streamed from inside.

“That’s quite clever,” Sirius said, folding his arms. “What kind of a range do they have?”

“Well, they haven’t been tested in outer space,” said the boy. Harry laughed. “Here are all the words they’re spelled for.” He picked up a piece of paper from the table, and Harry saw that there was a color of smoke to correspond with Safe, Happy, Worried, Warning, and Tell. “You can use them however you want, but we say that ‘tell’ means send back a response about how you are, and ‘danger’ means ‘I’m in danger’ and ‘warning’ means ‘you might be in danger.’ Sometimes my grandmother will change the words for a little extra.”

“I’ll have a pair,” Sirius declared. “How much?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “ _Sirius_ ,” he bemoaned. “You’re supposed to haggle, but if you can’t bring yourself to do that, at least ask for the price before you say you’re buying a pair.”

The boy looked amused. “Fortunately for me, it’s too late for all that now.” He cocked his head and looked shrewdly at Sirius. “Let me guess. You’re very rich, and always have been.”

Sirius blushed a bit, and Harry laughed again. The boy grinned, revealing even white teeth that were startling against his caramel skin. “My grandmother’s price is always fifty dollars. They really do work from far away, although the messages take ten minutes or so when we send them all the way to my cousin in Wales. That’s where you’re from, right?”

Harry thought Sirius might take objection to being accused of being Welsh, but he only shrugged. “Pretty close. London.” Harry helped him count out the money, trying not to roll his eyes, since he couldn’t imagine struggling with American paper money. The boy watched them, looking amused, and shook Sirius’s hand after he accepted the bills. “Pick two you like, but they need to have the same colored bead. That’s how we remember which ones form a set.” While Sirius turned back toward the table, the boy put his hand out again and this time Harry shook it. “I’m Avery,” said the boy.

“Harry.” They smiled with sudden shyness at each other. “You aren’t from here,” Harry added, tentatively, but fairly sure. His mother’s friends at the Institute were part of the Taos people, and they dressed and spoke differently than Avery and his grandmother.

Avery gave a low whistle. “A gringo who doesn’t paint every native with the same brush.” Harry hadn’t asked, and Avery was only a little taller than him, but he was starting to suspect he was quite a bit older than Harry. Still, he smiled in a friendly way. “I like you already. You’re right; we’re Cherokee. My grandmother was born on a reservation but now we live out of a suitcase, more or less. We come here to sell stuff and see other magical people, and we usually don’t miss the Summit. What about you?”

Blinking at all of the information he just received with no effort on his part, Harry swallowed. He realized Avery must be a Gryffindor, especially considering how reasonable a price fifty dollars really was. “I grew up in the States, but now I go to Hogwarts, in Scotland, so my mom moved to London. So I guess we live in London, even though I haven’t even spent the night in the house there yet.”

Avery looks calmly at Harry’s forehead for a moment, and though he has clearly drawn a parallel, he doesn’t mention it. “Are you busy later? A bunch of the kids are going to meet up this afternoon and play capture the flag. You fly, right? You don’t have to be very good to be better than some of them.”

“Um,” Harry began, imagining his mother’s face if he asked her to go flying, unsupervised, in the desert with a bunch of older kids. Sirius had taken his time picking out his bags, but was turning back now, with no pretense of not having been listening.

“You ought to go have some fun, Harry,” he said evenly. “Show these American kids how a Quidditch player flies.” He smiled and winked at Avery, who looked at Harry expectantly.

“Great. Come to the south side of the lecturers’ tent at about four, and we’ll hike out a little ways from there.”

Later that day, after Sirius had casually separated Lily from her bag for long enough that Harry extracted his broom, Harry set off for the meeting point Avery had described. There were several kids there, including Avery, who had at some point changed into jeans and a fitted long sleeved shirt that made him look even older than he had before. 

Avery greeted Harry cheerfully, and made casual introductions as the group walked out toward the empty desert beyond the summit footprint. There were ten kids altogether, four girls and six boys, and two of the girls were Harry’s age and the younger siblings of one of the older girls and one of the older boys. Only Avery and one other girl, Bette, were Native and seemed to know each other. Harry gradually realized they’d spent all day gadhering the rest of the kids and didn’t know any of them any better than Harry.

Capture the flag was about as much fun on broomsticks as would be expected. After two hours the two younger girls had quit, and a half hour after that everyone but Harry, Avery and Bette, clearly the only experienced flyers, were work out. When the group broke up, Harry had committed several names and addresses to memory for future owl correspondence, and found himself reluctant to part from Avery’s quick grin and focused gaze.

”So, Harry Potter, huh?” Bette asked pointedly, alongside Harry as they trailed after the rest of the kids to head back toward the campgrounds. “Can you do anything cool with your scar?” Startled, Harry looked over at her.

”That’s not really how it works.”

Bette looked surprised. “It must be a hell of a curse scar. You mean it didn’t give you an agadoli?”

”Sorry, Harry.” Avery said. “Bette thinks that everyone teaches from the same curriculum as our half-mad grandmother.” 

Harry still wasn’t sure what to say, or why his heart was beating so fast, or why he wanted to touch his scar. He had learned in the past few hours that Bette and Avery were cousins, raised together like siblings. 

“Will your dad let you come with us tomorrow?” Bette asked. “We could show you that trick Avery was talking about, for your school contest.” Harry saw a brief flash of yearning on Bette’s face, and remembered how transfixed she was when the other kids rattled off the names of their schools. 

“My uncle,” Harry said, absently. “Not my dad. I’ll have to ask.” 

“Here,” Avery said, unwinding a necklace from his neck. He handed it to Harry, and he saw it was a pouch on a long leather thong, just like the ones Sirius had bought. “Tell it ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ and we’ll come by in the morning if you can.”

”Thanks,” Harry nodded, looping the necklace around his neck. The pouch was still warm from Avery’s skin. “If I can’t, how will I get it back to you?”

”Well, I have some extra charms on that one,” Avery said cryptically. “I can find it, so long as you don’t go back to Scotland with it.”

”Good night, Harry,” said Bette. Avery waved, and they parted ways. The desert was cooling fast as night came on. Harry shivered and hurried toward the part of the camp where they’d pitched their tent.

 


	7. Harry Part VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 7, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this as I write it is presenting some problems, such as 1) more needed to happen/be revealed in Chapter 7 than did, 2) I don't want to confuse anyone who has already read Chapter 7 by adding on to it now, so we'll call this Part II of Chapter 7 and maybe one day I'll consolidate them into one AO3 chapter too. I realize it's very possible that no one is reading these chapters contemporaneously with me posting them, but it's good for my writing/posting accountability to imagine them, so I am. (That's as subtle as I get in begging for feedback!)

Later that evening, still blissfully tired from capture the flag, Harry paused at the entrance to their tent in the campground, because he could hear voices emanating from the other side. The tent flap had been left very slightly ajar, so the soundproofing hadn't taken effect, and Sirius and Lily's voices carried through the material as easily as they would if it was ordinary fabric.

Harry might not have eavesdropped if the first words he caught hadn't been so painfully intriguing. Especially considering how his last attempt in the corridor at Hogwarts had worked out.

"So Voldemort is alive, then," Sirius was saying, his voice hollow.

"Quirrell thought he was alive. That doesn't mean he is," Lily answered evenly. "And sometimes when I have visited Harry, I have noticed his scar looking or feeling different. He hasn't mentioned anything to me about pain or blood, but he doesn't tell me everything, especially anything he thinks might convince me to take him out of school."

"But Harry wouldn't understand the significance of an active curse scar, surely. There aren't many wizards who would, and it certainly isn't a subject at Hogwarts."

"I don't think so, either, but I don't know. You saw the conclusion in Olyphant's study, I suppose, and it proves out, logically and magically. We've always known that avada kedavra severs the soul from the body, and we also know that rebounded curses, especially cast with deep intent, can have unpredictable outcomes. If those terrible experiments were accurately documented, then we also know that a soul can be decoupled from the body and transferred to another living being."

"But those were deliberate transfers, conducted by rituals and active casting. There is nothing to indicate the souls wouldn't have moved on without a live wizard forcing them to stay."

When Lily spoke again, her voice was changed, soft and rough. "He was a very powerful wizard, Sirius. And there are many methods of evading death, as Professor Quirrell's research path makes clear. And nothing would have deterred him from the darkest of them."

"If all of this is possible, I can't imagine why Dumbledore wouldn't have been doing what Quirrell did. Researching and investigating the possibility."

"We don't know that he hasn't."

"Lily..."

"I know you trust him, Sirius, and that's your choice."

"Like you trust Snape. He's the one who told Voldemort about the prophecy!"

"He told Voldemort what Dumbledore wanted him to tell Voldemort."

"Maybe."

Harry's heart was racing. He was beginning to wish he hadn't heard any of this. Why couldn't he just trust the adults around him to tell him things if he needed to know them? He didn't need to know this!

_But don't I? I was the subject of that bloody prophecy, after all, and if Voldemort hasn't been defeated yet, wouldn't that mean...?_

"Dumbledore has never consented to my seeing his memory of the prophecy."

"He is famous for his mistrust of pensieve memories."

"In recent years, he has certainly given that impression."

Sirius sighed, in a long-suffering way that told Harry this was not the first or even the second time and Lily had had this argument. "Questions of trustworthiness aside, we should bring all of this to him."

"I agree. He spends so little time at the school that I don't know how he keeps his position, but he has promised to make time for me just at the end of the holidays, and I was hoping you and Remus would come with me. Remus has done as much investigating as I have, and it will be better if the information is firsthand and coming from multiple sources. I hope I'm wrong and he takes it seriously and proposes a course of action, but I am expecting him to nod politely and promise to look into things and send us on our way. Which is why I'm going to New Zealand to find Olyphant in person. He is said to travel with his essential library, and I need to see some of the ancient materials firsthand to evaluate their authenticity, and to answer a few questions he didn't address in his own work."

"You think he'll let you?" There was a moment of silence, then Sirius laughed, a little bitterly. "Oh, Lily. A Light witch only when convenient."

"There is no Light and Dark dichotomy, Sirius," she said lightly. "Or haven't you read my book?"

"Harry! Harry!"

The call was faint, and came from the opposite direction of the tent, so Harry hoped his mother and Sirius hadn't heard it. He jerked back, spun around, and saw Zack racing toward him, face alight.

"You wouldn't  _believe_  what dad and I get to do the day before the full moon!" he exclaimed when he reached Harry. Remus was following at a much more sedate pace, but he looked happy and at ease for once, too, Harry noticed as he tried to slow his pounding heart and emerge from the dark train of thoughts he had fallen into while listening to his uncle and his mother. Cautiously, Harry followed a chattering Zack through the tent flaps, and watched Sirius greet him animatedly. When he risked a glance at Lily, she was watching Sirius and Zack, too, and smiling softly, and when she felt Harry's stare and turned with an arched brow, he knew at once that she didn't think he'd been listening.

"How was your game?" she asked, not without reprimand, and Harry blushed.

"Um, well," he looked over uneasily at Sirius, not wanting to evade blame, but then again, Sirius _had_ said he could go...

"I'm well aware that you had permission," Lily said, amused. She was sitting in a squashy sofa positioned across from two chairs in the living area of the tent. Harry crossed the room, which was a few hundred square feet larger than it had any right to be, and dropped into one of the chairs. Harry was still adjusting to the proportions of the tent Sirius and Remus had brought with them, apparently a fairly ancient heirloom of the Black family, and one of the few items in that category that Sirius let himself use and enjoy. Its interior was expansive with wizarding space, visual portals charmed to look like windows revealed scenery from beautiful vistas throughout the world. The interior of the tent was bonded to actual, medieval tapestries so old they didn't move, which was a relief because some of the depicted scenes were incredibly macabre, and much easier to ignore without live action. The tapestries were also primarily black and dark grey in color, which gave the enormous space sort of a cozy feeling if the curtains were drawn over the portals or if it was after dark in the places depicted in the portals.

"It was good," he said absently, his head still abuzz with thoughts of what he'd overheard. Remus and Sirius were steering Zack toward the kitchen, and Harry and Lily were close enough to alone that he wondered if he should confront her about all the things she was apparently keeping from him. He didn't. "They asked me to come out tomorrow."

"That should be fine, so long as you stay inside the wards. I thought you might want to watch some of the lectures, maybe get some ideas for your ritual."

Harry shrugged. The competitiveness of the ritual had worn off for him as soon as Draco Malfoy had submitted his team. Thinking about that, Harry's mouth quirked in a reluctant smile. He hadn't told his mother the story yet, but he was still filled with too many mixed feelings to want to talk to her about it now.

"It's probably more basic than what anyone here will be talking about," Harry said, "but I did want to hear that talk of Dr. Lahoi's." Dr. Laura Lahoi was one of the friends of his mother's they had stayed with when they came to Taos two years before, and she had a way of making the dullest subjects interesting. Plus, Harry thought it would be impolite to miss the talk of the only presenter he actually knew. He could tell his mother was pleased by her quick smile.

"That would be nice of you," she said, confirming his instincts about basic good manners. "Tell me about your new friends."

Harry did, and was a little ashamed how readily he pushed aside anxieties about Voldemort and prophecies to relive a game of capture the flag. Lily listened to him, smiling and nodding at the appropriate moments, and when he finished, she took something out of her pocket. When she opened her hand, Harry recognized the pouches that Sirius had bought from Avery's grandmother.

"These are lovely," she said, and Harry knew she meant the spells, not the aesthetics, though he thought the beads and feathers were rather pretty, too. "I've heard of the old Cherokee spells, but I haven't seen them in person."

"I thought Sirius was buying them for himself."

"No, he thought they would satisfy my 'tendency to hover over my son,'" Lily said, her tone shifting into a parody of Sirius over the last phrase, a fairly good replication of his accent. "He's not wrong. They are very clever, and I've thought about making similar objects, myself, but never had the stomach for it. But now that the bison are already dead..."

Harry stared at her blankly. "What."

"Harry, these are linked objects. That takes a ritual and a blood sacrifice, not a simple charm." She tossed him one of the pouches and he caught it without thinking, then stared at it in sudden distaste. "Harry," Lily said, and when he looked up at her she rolled her eyes. "Don't be naïve. And don't be judgmental. I would be willing to guess that the bison was slated for the dinner table anyway."

"How do you know it was a bison?"

"Hmm. Practice, I guess," she said, as if that made any sense. "I'm squeamish about killing animals myself, which is hypocritical, of course. I'm happy to eat them if someone else will do it for me." She stood up and stretched. "I bet you're hungry. Let's go see what Kreacher brought."

Harry _wasn't_ hungry. He didn't think he would ever be hungry again. But after gingerly tucking the pouch his mother had tossed him into his pocket, he picked up the one around his neck, loosened the thong, and spoke into it. "Yes."

***********************

The next day, Avery and Bette collected Harry and they didn't rendezvous with any other kids, which pleased Harry. He liked to think of it as evidence that Avery and Bette preferred Harry to their other new acquaintances. They took him on an insider's tour of the summit, since they knew so many of the vendors and some of the presenters, and had collected gossip on the ones they didn't. The food vendors fondly passed them free tidbits with such frequency that Harry was uncomfortably full after an hour, and wondered where Avery and Bette stored the excess on their lean frames if this was their typical reception. It took Harry most of the morning to both work up the courage and find a good opportunity, but when they were resting just before noon in the shade of Avery and Bette's grandmother's tent near her booth, Harry turned to Bette.

"You know yesterday, when you were asking about my scar?"

She frowned over at him, but nodded. They were sitting on the dusty ground, leaning back on their elbows, Avery on one side of Harry and Bette on the other. "Sure I do. What about it?"

"You asked if I had an..." Harry searched for the word.

"Agadoli," Bette supplied at once. "An eye, to see things you couldn't without it," she added.

"I've never heard of anything like that," Harry said. "I don't know anything about curse scars, except that they never go away."

"Our magical people have a legend about a shaman named Raven, who battled an enemy shaman before our people knew the art of a curse. The enemy knew the art, and cursed Raven, but Raven's magic was so powerful that he was able to heal. The oldest shamans in the tribe chanted over Raven for three days while he healed from the curse, and a scar took shape on his chest as he awoke. The curse had exacted a price, and Raven could no longer speak to cast a spell, so he was a shaman no more. But he told his people that while he slept the healing sleep, he had visions of a great fire that swept the plains and burned the village, as though he had seen it with his own eyes before it engulfed and killed him too. The tribe had no Seer at that time, but they trusted a Seer's art, so they dug the widest fire barrier they could, with every many, woman and child working for hours until the fire came, as predicted. The village was saved. Then, news came to the tribe that the fire had begun far west on the plains, where the enemy tribe of the shaman who cursed Raven had been camped. Raven had seen the fire and the burning village through the enemy's eyes, as it happened. He hadn't foreseen the future at all, and he never saw through the agadoli again."

"But isn't that just a story?" Harry couldn't keep himself from touching his scar. It hadn't hurt in weeks, but it had woken him up from strange, dark dreams that were hard to remember with a pulsing pain several times since that first morning at Hogwarts, as though something had changed. He thought of his mother and Sirius's conversation and shuddered.

"It is," Bette agreed, "but there have been people with recorded cases of curse scars, that seem to carry a price - even if it's only pain" - Harry flinched, but she didn't notice - "and a gift. Not always an agadoli, but like in Raven's story, the agadoli lets you see through the curser's eye so long as they yet live."

"Isn't that just," Harry paused and searched for the word, "...legilimency?"

"I don't know what legilimency is."

"It's a spell that...well, it's a spell, so maybe I answered my own question."

"This isn't a spell," Bette agreed. "It's a side effect of a two-way involuntary ritual, more or less, if the energies are powerful enough. Usually the curse has to be fatal in its power but with deep intent."

"Deep intent," Harry echoed, feeling ill. "That means..."

"The direct result of the spell is just the means of a deeply valued end," Avery said. "Whatever that means. You should probably talk to our grandmother about this if it really interests you. She would love the chance to poke at your scar, I'm sure. It's a pet subject of hers."

Harry smiled faintly and looked over at their grandmother, and was startled to see Lily there, speaking with her animatedly. He scrambled to his feet and walked over briskly without a word to Bette and Avery, who exchanged a look in his wake, stood more slowly, and followed. Harry was oblivious to them, zeroing in on Lily, half convinced she was discussing the darkest details of Harry's scar with someone she'd just met. When he was close enough, he picked up on a completely impersonal conversation about ritual animal sacrifices, and wilted in some combination of disappointment and relief against the hovering log table.

"There you are, Harry." Lily broke off whatever she had been saying to turn to Harry. "I hoped you'd be here. I thought we could walk over to Dr. Lahoi's talk together. Do your friends want to come?"

Harry had heard enough snide comments about the lack of true innovation in this round of summit presentations from Bette and Avery to doubt it, but they surprised him by agreeing to come along, and he introduced them briefly to his mother. She asked the question Harry hadn't been sure how to ask. "How old are you two?"

"I'm fourteen, and she's thirteen," Avery said, then caught Bette's wounded look and rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine. Thirteen _and a half_."

Harry wasn't sure why hearing this outright made him nervous, but he had the vague idea that kids didn't like to hang out with children younger than they were. He rarely saw much socializing between kids more than a year apart at Hogwarts.

"I'll be fourteen in July," Bette said, and Lily smiled. 

"Harry will be twelve in July," she said, and he glanced uneasily at Avery for signs of shock, but saw none.

"July 31, isn't it? According to the newspapers." Avery grinned at Harry and winked. Of course, they already knew. Anyone who wanted to look it up could know.

The presentation was underwhelming, as it turned out, but Harry tried to look attentive, a trick he had begun to develop over the past several months in History of Magic. Avery sat by Harry with Bette on his other side. When Dr. Lahoi finished, Harry's mother went up to congratulate her and Avery turned to Harry and made a face. They laughed.

"We found out earlier that we have to leave tonight," he told Harry, and Harry felt his heart fall. He wasn't sure why he liked Avery and Bette so much so quickly, but he did. Especially Avery. And it seemed unlikely that he would see them again any time soon, if at all. "Here." Avery handed Harry the little pouch that he had given him the day before. "This one has some extra tricks," he said, and didn't explain further. "Hang onto it, okay? And maybe don't tell just anybody about the spells, or my grandmother might kill me."

Harry was confused, but mostly still distracted by his crushing disappointment, so he just nodded with a half smile.

"We have to go pack things up," Bette said. "Bye, Harry. Have a good life." She waved and started off.

"Don't mind her, she hates goodbyes," Avery said. He gave Harry a quick hug. It made Harry feel very warm. "Talk to you later, Harry," Avery said with a last bright smile, then turned and jogged after Bette, lost to Harry after just a few moments in the crowds dispersing from beneath the big canopy.

*******************

Two days before the full moon, the conference ended and Harry watched Remus and Sirius disassemble the tent, sitting beside Zack on a rock and eating an apple. Zack and Remus were staying for a few days until after the full moon, and then they would meet up with Sirius, Lily and Harry at a beachside resort in Southern California where they would all spend Christmas. Zack was incandescent with excitement about running with such a large pack, and rambling constantly about the brilliant side effects of the various rituals they had participated in over the past couple days to prepare them for an easy and controlled transition and wolf. Harry hoped for everyone's sake that the ritual helped as much as intended, since the thirst for human blood that was the highlight of the anti-werewolf narrative was not totally invented, especially for a juvenile like Zack. Sirius had been sulking a little, since he typically spent the full moon with Remus and Zack in his animagus form, but the rules of the summit pack were clear and did not allow any non-werewolves within a hundred miles, much less in the midst of the pack in wolf form, on the day or night of the full moon.

Everyone said their temporary goodbyes, and then Harry, Lily and Sirius started down the footpath they'd ascended less than a week before. It was cooler today than it had been then, and a quarter mile or so of pleasant silence later, Harry took a deep breath and said the words he'd been rehearsing for days.

"Mom, my scar has been hurting. And I've been having some really strange dreams. I didn't tell you because I didn't want to worry you and I thought it was just homesickness, and knowing the whole story about how I got my scar, and normal nightmares. But I don't know, and I heard you and Sirius talking about how Voldemort might not be dead after all, so it seems like I have to tell you now."

It was quite a while later before they finished the very short walk back to the lot where they had left the rental car.  


	8. Harry Part VIII

"Enjoying your holiday, Harry?"

Lily's question came as they walked slowly through the foamy surf on the scrap of beach that Lily had apparated them to. It wasn't private land, but it was made inaccessible to the non-magical overland visitors by rocky borders to the north and south. The only other people there were Harry's uncles and Zack, who had fallen asleep in the shade, still tuckered out from the change and the general excitement of the summit. Remus and Sirius were sitting by him, too small at this distance to make out much detail, but Harry thought he could see Remus's head resting on Sirius's shoulder. 

"Yes," Harry said. "But it seems strange to be at the beach for Christmas. Maybe we should have gone back to London. You said that Grimmauld Place needs some breaking in."

"If you think that sand and sunshine detracts from the Christmas spirit," Lily said, "you should try spreading some tinsel around that house. It's safe enough now, I would think, but I'd like to redecorate a little."

"Sirius said you figured out how to take down the elf heads," Harry said, shuddering.

"I did," Lily said, laughing a little. "I thought it would bother Kreacher more, but apparently they were some of his Mistress's favorites, and he's always been jealous of them." Harry frowned at the reference to the wizened house elf, who had called his mother some names that would have shocked Draco Malfoy. She always appeared unperturbed, somehow, and could look at Kreacher with true fondness that Harry didn't understand at all. He reached out and took his mother's hand, blushing as he did it. She lifted their linked fingers and kissed the back of his wrist, and their hands swung between them as they walked.

"You keep promising to tell me about the team you put together for your ritual. I already know about Neville. Augusta wrote to me."

Harry nodded, not looking at her. "I should have asked him right away, but I didn't."

"You asked him eventually, though," Lily prompted. Harry shook his head, watching his feet reappear as he lifted them from the water, then disappear again. Feeling the sand mold around the bottom of his bare foot.

"No. Ron Weasley asked him. And for a minute when he told me, I was..."

"Upset with him?" Lily's tone was light. "Did you tell him that?"

Horrified, Harry looked at her then. "Of course not. I didn't want to hurt him."

"What is it you feel so terrible about, Harry?"

"I...Ron, you know, he doesn't ever want to study or...classes, they don't motivate him. But he's really smart. You should see him play chess, or sort out Quidditch strategies in the middle of a game. We're f-friends, so I knew he'd want to team up. And I wanted to, because...well, I thought because of all the things I just said, and I didn't really think about it too hard. But then he told me he'd run into Neville, and Neville was worrying about finding a group, and..." Harry stopped and swallowed, not even sure what he was trying to say. "There aren't an equal number of first years in every house. Slytherin and Hufflepuff have fewer than Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. So we were allowed two Ravenclaws or two Gryffindors. Anyway, I thought we'd find two Ravenclaws. I never even though about how Neville would _have_ to be on a team with a Slytherin, and _every_ first year Slytherin but me is mean to him, because of potions or something, I don't know." He was rambling now. "You probably think it's stupid even to get upset about this. You think V-Voldemort might be back, and I'm going crazy about a school project."

Lily had stopped walking. She tugged on Harry's hand, and when he stopped and looked up at her, she moved so that she was facing him and stared down into his eyes. The sunlight permeated the space between them so completely he could see a pure reflection of his own troubled face in each of her eyes.

"I just want to be a good person," he said roughly.

"Harry," Lily said gently. "You are a good person." She hugged him tightly, and Harry swayed against her, dazed, for a few moments before he started to cry.

"So, did you get your Ravenclaw?" she asked a while later, and Harry hiccupped and laughed, pulling back to rub his fists against his eyes, shoving his glasses up onto his forehead.

"Yeah. A really good one. Mason Andrews. Rumor has it he memorized all the original Spanish curses before he was ten."

"Andrews. That name sounds familiar."

"He says his grandparents were friends with dad's parents."

"Hmm," Lily said. She kicked at the water, and with her face turned and her hair wild from the sea breeze, half of it escaped from the hasty braid she'd pulled it into, she looked very pretty and very young. "And what about Draco Malfoy?"

Harry was glad she wasn't looking at him. They'd had quite a talk about his behavior and general association with Draco Malfoy after he and Draco got into a fight after potions that earned them both detention. Lily had made Harry promise to treat Draco with as much respect as he would anyone else, and to keep disagreements civil. And absolutely not to lay any money on Draco's performance in the ritual contest.

"I know when we talked about this last, I was pretty angry," Lily said. "But I understand what your goal was in trying to force Draco to take the competition seriously. And it would probably be good for that boy to...well, to be forced to see different people in a more sympathetic light. How did it all turn out?"

"Well, it turned out, despite me," Harry said, still unsure about this topic, but eager to share at the merest signal of sincere interest on his mother's part. She looked at him, expression curious, and Harry went on. "I tried to talk Hermione into convincing Draco, which, in hindsight was..." Harry shrugged, then steeled himself and sighed, "...a really stupid idea. But for her own reasons, I guess, Hermione did talk to Draco, and no one knows why, but they teamed up. I didn't think Draco could get over Hermione being Muggleborn, but she's so smart and such a strong witch, I guess I can see why he would want to. What I can't figure out is why Hermione would be on a team with someone who has been so mean to her and...about her."

"You can't really understand this, Harry, but being Muggleborn at Hogwarts can be very lonely. And being Muggleborn at all, you can feel so...hungry, maybe, for insight into the wizarding world. No one seems more connected to the heart of it than a Pureblood like Draco. The chance to get close to someone like him might feel like a chance to learn about a world that Hermione very badly wants to know."

This was not an idea that would have ever occurred to Harry, but he supposed it made some sense.

"Besides," Lily continued, "from what you've said about Hermione, the library alone might be enough to bribe her?"

Harry glanced over, startled. "What do you mean?"

"The Malfoy library," Lily said, as though stating the obvious. At Harry's blank look, she rolled her eyes. "And here I thought you could sort Ravenclaw. The Malfoy library is famously enormous and famously charmed, Harry. It's so extensive it takes up wizarding space on four continents, and if you have a drop of a Malfoy's blood and a title, odds are you can summon any book you could want to your hand in a moment. From what I understand they only stay an hour or so, and certain valuable volumes aren't included, but still. It would be enough to tempt any Ravenclaw to ally with an enemy."

"I see," Harry said faintly. Just when he thought the wizarding world couldn't shock him with something as mundane as a library. "Well."

Lily was peering at his face, suddenly distracted. "Let's get back to the others," she said. "I think you need more sunscreen."

 

*********************

 

Ms. Lily Evans Potter,

This letter confirms your port key reservation from London, UK to Wellington, NZ the fifteenth of January, 1992, at 8:05 o'clock in the morning. Please arrive one hour early to allow for passage through customs and recording of your magical signature prior to your departure. If you have any questions, direct them by owl to ICW International Port Key Office, UK Branch, Ministry of Magic Suite XXXIIIF, London.

Your truly,

Angela Carver Delilah Gibbons

ICW Pork Key Div. XVI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I so appreciate every kudos and comment.


	9. Harry Part IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These rituals are making terrific sense in my imagination, so I hope they do to you too.

Dear Lily,

As we discussed, Professor Quirrell and I will meet you at dawn the day after tomorrow so that you can ensure the controlled environment is fully operational.

I will ensure that you have the opportunity for the private audience with Quirrell which you desire.

Your servant,

Severus

*************

The morning of the finals of the ritual competition dawned like any other, except that various parents, guardians and other family members were assembled outside the gates, speaking excitedly to one another. Some of the children had received owls from the adults in their lives letting them know they’d be arriving, and because Harry was one of them, he was on the other side of the gates, feebly wiping sleep from his eyes while holding his glasses away from his face, when they opened.

“Good morning, Harry!” exclaimed Sirius, shouldering in front of the rest of the people pouring through the gates with the bounding stride, glossy hair and general energy level of a labrador retriever. Harry blinked at him, smiling, just in time to make out a wide smile in return before he was engulfed in a crushing embrace.

“Hullo, Harry,” Remus said, gripping his shoulder when he at last emerged from Sirius’s robes. Harry smiled at him, too, then looked past them hopefully, but there was no sign of Lily.

“Your mum hasn’t gotten back yet,” Remus said apologetically. “She may still make it, though. There’s an hour or so before the rituals, isn’t there? Do you know where your team is in the order?”

Harry was filled with the appalling urge to cry. He hadn’t seen his mother since Christmas, and with her out of owl range, he felt her distance in a way he never had before. Hard to believe, he thought bitterly, that he’d once lamented her visiting him every Saturday like he was just a baby. "It doesn't start for an hour, but only three teams designed a theoretically balanced ritual and the Professors thought one was likely to give all the participants permanent amnesia, so there's just two of us. We go second."

Remus nodded. "Congratulations, Harry. We are so glad to be here."

“It’s freezing out here,” Sirius observed. “Let’s get Harry inside.”

They fell back into the flow of the other families. “I can’t remember parents coming to the school for _anything,_ ” a tall man who appeared to belong to Ernie McMillan was saying. “Very unusual.”

Harry gave that some thought. In the Muggle world, parents seemed to be invited weekly to some academic or extracurricular exhibition. But in his time at Hogwarts, that certainly hadn’t been the case. Parents did come for Quidditch games, but they didn’t tend to intermingle with the students much when they were there, and he hadn’t seen them at the castle.

“Thank you for coming,” he told his uncles, realizing that he should have said it sooner, but he couldn’t see a single shadow in their answering smiles.

“It’s really wonderful seeing you here, Harry,” Sirius said, with the look in his eyes he got when Harry reminded him of James. He had the look often. Harry blushed and looked away when Remus slung a comforting arm around Sirius’s shoulders. Harry was glad they’d all been able to move past the Slytherin tie.

“Welcome, students, parents, friends!” Professor Dumbledore called from the entrance with its looming doors and many stairs. Harry hadn’t come into the castle through the front doors like this since the day of the welcome feast. “Please assemble in the Great Hall, where we have a fortifying breakfast prepared. The staff are making a final assessment of the controlled environment, and we shall soon see the results of our fine young teams’ ingenuity.”

Dumbledore greeted all the families who passed, but as Sirius and Remus approached, he seized their hands with especial fondness. Harry stood back, surprised. He had often heard that the headmaster had a soft spot for Gryffindors, but he had never talked enough with him to know. Now, Harry found a pair of sharp blue eyes, twinkling behind half-moon glasses, alight on him. “Harry,” Dumbledore said softly. “Congratulations on your team making the final cut, as they say. It is wonderful to see four students from different houses working together so companionably.”

“Thank you, sir,” Harry said stiffly, then to Remus and Sirius, “I have to go get ready.” He was glad it was true, uncomfortable at the idea of Dumbledore twinkling at him overlong. When his uncles shooed him off Harry ran up the remaining stairs and followed the trail of corridors toward the foot of Ravenclaw tower. By the time he made it to the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room, everyone else was waiting for him.

“Harry, finally,” Mason said.

“I don’t know why we had to meet up here. I told you that I had to go meet my uncles and this might be the furthest possible point from the Great Hall.”

“Neville was reviewing his brewing steps all morning,” Mason said, chiding. “It’s not all about you.”

“ _All_ morning?” Harry echoed incredulously. “It’s only 7:30 a.m. now!”

“In Ravenclaw tower, the quest for knowledge commences daily at dawn,” Mason deadpanned, but by now Harry felt safe to roll his eyes instead of trying to nod politely.

“You’re here now, Harry,” Ron said; he was leaning against a window frame and looking paler than usual, his freckles standing out in dark red relief. “So let’s get on with it.” He sounded very tired, there was dirt under his fingernails, and a seam was coming loose in the left sleeve of his robes. Harry looked from Ron to Neville with a carefully neutral expression, reflected on their beautiful, precarious ritual, which wouldn’t suffer a single mistake, and strongly considered simply going back to bed.

“Let’s,” he said instead, with a tight smile for his team, and they headed for the stairs.

 

 

 

 

****************

Draco, Hermione, Lavender Patil and Hannah Abbott were first.

The controlled environment must have been standard, because it was just like the one in Taos, if a little smaller. Or perhaps that was just the effect of having it indoors. When the time came, the four teammates stepped through its boundary, and Harry watched Draco shudder the same way Harry always did when he entered the oddly charged atmosphere inside.

Onlookers stood in a loose ring around the environment, and directly across from where Harry was standing, he could see two people who had to be Draco’s parents. Though the energy in the environment made them seem slightly hazy, like something on the other side of crude glass, Draco was practically a miniature cast of his father, but with his mother’s luminous grey eyes. As Harry watched, he happened to see Mrs. Malfoy’s gaze catch, and when he followed the direction of her look, he found that Sirius was watching her from several feet away. They exchanged polite nods.

 _Cousins,_ Harry remembered. He couldn’t spare that much thought, though. The atmosphere inside the environment abruptly went pink, an indicator that a dozen complicated spells had taken effect and would neutralize a variety of the most dangerous potential outcomes of experimental magic. The team members began with a quiet chant, a classic way to initiate a ritual, and Harry thought he could make out a visible shimmer as four magical sources interwove. The chant was not in any language Harry recognized, but when he glanced at Mason, the boy mouthed, "Hindi," and Harry's brows rose. He had very little knowledge of Hindu magic except that it was theoretically distinct from the Western school and didn't even utilize wands. More intrigued than ever, he watched as the chanting ceased, and the four people in the environment bowed with perfect solemnity.

Then, Hannah Abbott reached into her robes and emerged with a clear vial of colorless potion, which she unstoppered and poured over her head without hesitation. For a moment, Harry drew a complete blank, then he realized that while Harry had been watching Hannah, Draco had apparently expertly cast a _Protego_ so intricate it protected her scalp even as her hair caught fire, and she didn’t even flinch.

Harry’s head jerked toward Hermione, who had raised her wand, but had yet to begin any movements. Lavender, her famous loose ringlets gone nearly straight from the energy of the environment, incanted the hex that arched visibly toward the fiery mass of Hannah’s hair. It was an instant scalping hex, one that had absolutely never crossed Harry’s mind as impressive or useful the dozens of times he had read the lists, but in this context it caused the untethered mass of flaming hair to rise up from Hannah’s bare scalp as the Protego shimmered and disappeared.

Hermione’s charm took effect, though Harry didn’t hear her incant, and the ball of fire burst apart abruptly into four smaller parts, and appeared cupped in the palms of each of the ritualists, while they calmly held their wands in the opposite hand. _Accio,_ he thought; a simple and elegant demonstration that the ritual had found balance, because among the ritualists Hermione was one of four in that moment, instead of only herself. The _accio_ therefore brought fire not only to her hand, but to each ritualist’s hand.

Harry saw, glowing and central in each pocket of fire, a tangle of bright blue light. Hannah’s hair; it had to be. What on Earth had the potion been? Flammable in the open air, he had assumed, and intended merely to act as a tool to create simple fire. But now Harry thought it must be a complex imbuing potion, far off the first year curriculum. The advanced element, he thought, and not one with which he was familiar. The rules said that the one to brew the potion had to administer the potion, which meant it was Hannah's work.

Applause rang out, and the ritualists smiled smugly at one another. Hermione banished her own fire and then each of the other three, unable to contain her glee at the impressive and successful ritual. Though Harry noticed they did not conduct themselves as friends as they shook hands rather formally. Harry knew potions well enough to know that the one Hannah had brewed must have been incredibly advanced. He applauded in the same stunned manner he observed in the rest of his team.

“Who knew Hannah was such a potions whiz kid?” Harry muttered to Mason.

“Everyone she has potions with,” Mason said. “Including me.”

Harry had assumed that Draco would have chosen four team members for their separate individual strengths; but, more wisely perhaps, instead of assuming he could carry the potions element on his own, Malfoy found another strong potions student to collaborate with. Smart, Harry conceded to himself, grudgingly.

Draco’s team emerged from the controlled environment, and Harry saw that at the professors’ table, four of the twelve lateral fields now held the four individual fires from the ritual, frozen in stasis. Professor McGonagall had stepped forward to inspect, her fascination and delight obvious, and Harry frowned. Could the potion have transfigured the hair into a material that would produce a flame and burn indefinitely? Certainly such a material existed somewhere in the bizarre world of magic, and the combination of Hermione Granger and the Malfoy library led to its discovery.

“Very impressive, students,” called Dumbledore over the applause. “A tremendous secondary effect, imperviousness to fire,” he continued. Harry’s heart was beating very fast. Not only had Draco’s team pulled off the ritual, which was a feat in and of itself on the first try, but it had been an _awesome_ ritual with a terrifyingly practical secondary effect, even if, considering the simplicity of Hermione’s charm, the energy probably would have abated before too long.

“Mate, relax,” Ron said, bumping his shoulder against Harry’s encouragingly. “Didn’t you say this was supposed to be fun?”

Harry caught Ron’s wan smile and shook off his melancholy. He had _wanted_ Draco and Hermione to do well. That had been the whole _point_ of the façade of hypercompetitiveness he’d been maintaining in Slytherin for months, after all.

 _Just a façade, eh?_ asked his subconscious unhelpfully, sounding like Harry’s voice at space camp, and he grappled with himself a few moments longer, made himself look at Neville, and instantly relaxed.

Neville was watching Professor Snape with an expression of pure terror. The applause was dying down, the field was purging, and it would be their turn soon. Harry sidled over to Neville and touched his elbow.

“Hey, Nev, look at me,” Harry said softly, and Neville managed to tear his gaze away from Professor Snape and look at Harry, looking for all the world like a rabbit that just spotted the hound. “Don’t worry about Professor Snape, or anyone else. You could brew this thing in your sleep.” A part of Harry was wishing he had never thought he knew what was best for the universe and Neville and boys who were afraid of things, and that they’d planned for Harry to brew instead of testing Neville’s courage like this. Right now, it seemed cruel. It could easily go wrong, and Neville’s tentative confidence would suffer a tremendous setback if that happened. Harry swallowed, forcing that fear from his own mind so that there was no way Neville would pick up on it.

“What if I screw it up?” Neville said, his voice rough and hoarse to such an extent Harry almost couldn’t hear him. “You all will hate me.”

Harry held Neville’s gaze. “What if I mess up the hex? Will you hate me?”

Neville bit his lip, and shook his head.

“That’s right. It’s just an assignment, and we’re already at least second best.”

Neville brightened a little at that, but it didn't last. “I guess,” he said, though he still sounded miserable. Harry glanced at Professor Snape once more, and to his surprise, the potions master was looking down, and then abruptly, turning and striding out of the room. Harry frowned, then decided to be glad for Neville that he wouldn't have to brew his potion under his tormentor's watchful eye, and glanced around once more to look for his mother. She wasn't there.

“Come on, then,” Mason hissed, starting toward the environment. Harry slung his arm around Neville’s shoulders, squeezed once, companionably, and let go. There was no time for further reassurance. Harry stepped into the field and his hair, losing all its volume, drooped into his eyes. He pushed it back, smiled to himself, and watched Neville and Mason assemble the tiny glass caldron, vials and stirring rods. He caught sight of Draco Malfoy, standing beside Hermione Granger, their arms crossed in an unconscious echo of one another. Harry’s heart sped up in triumph. The real battle looked to have been won, even if a long war stretched ahead.


	10. Lily, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first of a three part section from Lily's point of view. It wasn't planned, but I wanted to go into more detail than the letters-to-Lily format allowed, and didn't want it to be relayed in dialogue. I hope you like it!

The sun was rising when Lily left the hotel and started off on foot to the coordinates she had finally wheedled out of the last name on her initial point of contact’s long list, six wearying weeks since she had first arrived in mid-January.

The temperature was mild, and the famously beautiful scenery glowed in the muted light. Lily appreciated natural beauty, and the opportunity to see so much of it in so many places was one of the blessings she valued most highly in her life, but since arriving in this country she had seen every sight through a dark lens. She felt increasingly certain that what she would learn here, in this beautiful place, would plunge her back into the dark center of a war she had believed to be over.

The Maori were unusual but not totally unique in that their traditional culture and magical culture were fully melded. There was no statute of secrecy in New Zealand, to the chagrin of the ICW; to placate the international community, New Zealand had signed the Separation and Protection Treaty in 1970, but like any treaty, it lacked teeth. The Maori were insular, though, and just because they weren’t legally bound to keep all Muggles unawares didn’t mean they weren’t motivated by sheer self-preservation to hide their magic around outsiders.

Lily’s hotel was meant for tourists on vacation, perched up in the mountains with a view of a sprawling valley studded by immaculate forest. A lake, gold beneath the sunrise, was cupped at the lowest point. Lily was still too far away to hear the breeze on the water, but close enough to make out miniscule waves, when her wand pulsed to alert her to her close proximity to the coordinates. She checked them again, cast the spell that would reveal her precise location with her wand, took a step to the right and nodded to herself.

There was a smooth, round stone by her left foot. She nudged it with her toe, and felt a brief whooshing sensation as the scene before her parted like a curtain and she made out a village of traditional dwellings circling a larger structure, as quiet as a still life as its occupants were presumably still asleep or just waking.

Lily took a few steps forward to clear the entry point, then sat on the damp grass, casting a quick drying charm as she descended. She was wearing simple Muggle attire: jeans, a long-sleeved, v-neck t-shirt in forest green, hiking boots and the hide pack that she had been carrying with her almost constantly since Laura Lahoi gave it to her eight years before. Her hair was braided.

As she’d expected, there was a monitoring spell of some sort at the entrance, and in less than a minute a few people were walking toward her from the village. Light had begun to emanate from windows and people were milling about. Lily stood as she was approached. There were two men and a woman, all somewhere in middle age. One of the men carried a wand, which surprised Lily on more than one level. She kept her hands relaxed and in front of her body to emphasize their emptiness.

“Hello,” Lily said. They nodded.

“Hello,” said the woman. “Are you here as someone’s guest?”

“I’m not expected,” Lily said, trying to sound apologetic, but they were unconcerned. She supposed it was complicated enough to send advanced word that stopping by unannounced wasn’t uncommon. “I’m here to see a researcher named Olyphant. I was told he might be here.”

She watched them exchange a look. Then one of the men said, “Olyphant’s body is here. He is unreturned from a spirit journey.”

Lily didn’t want to assume that she understood what she was being told, but she couldn’t imagine it was good news for Olyphant. “I’m Lily Potter. I was corresponding with Olyphant before he came down here, and I was hoping to consult with him. Will he…”

“If he does not return of his own volition, we will call him back,” the same man said. He closed the distance between himself and Lily and stretched out a hand. “I’m Anaru; that’s Janet, and Patariki – Pat.”

Lily shook Anaru’s hand, then Janet’s, and then Pat’s, after he stored his wand with a somewhat sheepish smile. She realized that they knew who she was, which had ceased to surprise her, although it rarely happened quite this far from home. There was no other explanation she could think of for the suddenly warm reception.

“Actually, we had talked about journeying out for him today. The best time is when the sun is at zenith,” Janet explained. She was studying Lily with an almost uncomfortable intensity. Recognizing Lily’s discomfort, she blushed and looked away. Lily glanced at Pat and Anaru and saw similar abashed expressions.

“Sorry,” said Pat. “Your family’s story is told often in these mountains. Something of a legend, I suppose you could say.”

Lily was not wholly surprised. Magical people the world over had watched Voldemort’s rise from afar, and scholars had since studied the phenomenon of Harry’s survival of the killing curse. That being said, most treated the stories with a degree of distance. There had been dark wizards in all corners of the world over the years, a handful of them as terrible and powerful as Voldemort themselves. Grindelwald was more globally feared, for example. She glanced at Pat’s wand and wondered how many of the magical people here had been trained in Europe, and whether that explained the difference.

“I could return this afternoon, and see if Olyphant is revived,” Lily said, at a loss. She didn’t want to go; she was stunned by her luck in locating Olyphant so easily, and though she was regretted hearing he was in some sort of comatose state, a small part of her cried out that surely he hadn’t taken his library into the nether realm – or wherever souls “journeyed” – with him. If she could just see his belongings, surely she could determine how he stored and secured it and…

“You should stay here, meet the people. Have breakfast. You are very welcome among us, Lily,” said Anaru. Lily tried not to sigh, but being treated as the holy vessel of Harry Potter exhausted her. She always felt like she deserved the benefits of the fanaticism, though, so she forced a smile and said, “Thank you.”

It was a small village, fortunately, so after a dozen or so introductions Lily was settled in relative peace at a long table in the large building at the village’s center, eating fruit salad and sipping a pleasantly aromatic tea.

As it turned out, Pat was a graduate of Beauxbatons and a career academic. He had met Olyphant through colleagues and Olyphant, delighted to have a Maori connection, had maintained correspondence. Pat shyly pointed out that he was credited in a few chapters of Olyphant’s latest book, and that they were working on a much more complex study in soul magic that had culminated with Olyphant’s most recent, perhaps overly bold venture away from his physical body. Pat spoke casually about it, but Lily saw him become slightly pale. She wondered how certain he was that he could retrieve Olyphant’s mind from wherever it had gone.

To Pat’s knowledge, no one by the name of Quirrell had ever been in contact with the magical Maori in the past few years, nor had Olyphant mentioned him. That didn’t surprise Lily. She had done enough research before coming to New Zealand to know that Olyphant, apparently via Pat, had provided a new scholarly conduit into the Maori people that hadn’t been there before. Voldemort’s personal research, if that’s what had guided Quirrell’s, predated the broader magical world’s insight into the Maori’s ancestral rituals and spells in soul magic.

After about an hour, Pat and Anaru left to prepare for the spellcasting, and several of the other people dispersed as well, leaving Lily and Janet to regard one another over a third cup of tea. Janet was quieter than the rest of the table had been, and therefore a little more intimidating. But Lily found the quiet something of a relief anyway. She felt frighteningly distant from her son. If he needed her and someone could manage to get word to her, which would be complicated, it would take days to arrange a return port key. It made her skin crawl to think of what could happen in the interim. She sent a silent, fervent thanks for the friendship of two men as fearsome and dedicated to Harry as Remus and Sirius into the abyss, her version of catchall prayer to whatever higher power might be listening.

Lily had been a carefree child, a happy newlywed, a fiercely optimistic soldier. But a shift had started in her heart when the healer handed her a newborn Harry, then deepened immeasurably when she had apparated to Godric’s Hollow in a blind panic after Voldemort’s purported vanquishment to find James lifeless beside Harry’s crib, her baby sobbing and scarred. Raising Harry had been a source of such healing joy that she had finally begun to feel like the foundations of herself were back in place, but a part of her had never trusted that he was truly safe.

And now…

Swallowing, Lily suddenly wished for the distraction of conversation, and caught Janet’s eye. “Does your soul journey?” Lily asked her, trying to use the phrasing that Pat did when he was speaking generally about what Olyphant was trying to do.

From Janet’s sharp look, Lily realized she was probably asking a deeply personal question. But the older woman’s frown eased after a moment, and she nodded. “Not often, but when the risk is justified,” she said. “Pat and his European friend are the only ones among us who journey for the sake of journeying.”

That made sense. Lily had gleaned that Olyphant’s present straits were not without ample precedent, and nothing seemed so horrifying as to be detached from one’s body, aware of the detachment to a certain extent, and unable to ever reconnect. The ultimate consequence was a lingering death of the empty body, according to Pat, who hadn’t gone into detail but had made the irreversible nature of such a detachment evident.

“Without your body, you are inhuman,” Janet said. “You are grounded by nothing, and compelled only by the most powerful ideas in your head when you left it. It is…” she let her voice trail off, searching for the word. Then, apparently unable to find it, she shrugged. Lily nodded, unable to stop herself from imagining Voldemort as he must have looked, raising his wand again after James lay dead. How that twisted mind would rise untethered from his body and frozen in whatever state was necessary to form the intent to kill a child so helpless.

“What are the chances they can bring Olyphant back?”

“Pat is adept at the spells, and Olyphant is grounded by a strong witch,” Janet said. Earlier, Pat had explained that a magical being was needed to link the body and soul. There had been some experimentation with creatures, but a witch or wizard focusing their magic on the effort was better, and for that reason the witch who had grounded Olyphant when he “departed” had been meditating at his bedside the two days since. “His chances are fairly good.”

By just before noon, Pat and Anaru were ready. They had prepared by painting sharp, geometric lines on the lower half of their faces and discarding their jeans and t-shirts for what Lily assumed were traditional Maori grass skirts. Pat had rounded shoulders and a soft abdomen, but the effect was still somewhat fierce. Anaru looked strong and frightening, a warrior stepped through time. He winked when he caught Lily’s appreciative stare. She blushed – it was nearly inevitable with her complexion – but didn’t flinch, instead returning his wink with a half-smile.

Lily had been invited to observe, but no one else came with them. The hut where Olyphant’s body was at rest looked very much like all the others from the outside. Inside, Lily found it to be a comfortable if Spartan residence. She followed the two men through a living room and past an open door into a small bedroom with – she saw immediately – a trunk and two rucksacks in one corner. A man in blue linen pajamas, presumably Olyphant, lay on the bed. He was lean, somewhat wizened, with a hawkish nose that reminded Lily for a half-second of Severus. His hair was long and steel-gray, smoothed out over the pillow under his head. A surprisingly young witch, Lily thought she couldn’t be past her early twenties, sat still at his side with her eyes closed. She had the same sleek hair and bone structure as Janet, but her fair complexion suggested a non-Maori parent. Anaru went to stand behind her with his hands on her shoulders; she never moved. Pat stood at the other side of the bed and drew his wand.

When Lily had been trained to hunt dark artefacts, she had honed an awareness of magical energy that she couldn’t turn off and on. It weighed on her constantly, a distracting sixth sense, and that was now she knew that Anaru and Pat were engaged in spellwork. At Hogwarts, Lily had thought that magic looked and felt and behaved a certain, orderly way, summoned by an incantation and channeled through a wand, the buzz of a transfiguration or the visible flash of a hex. She had quickly learned that the art manifested in as many variations as there were world cultures – more, since there were some who practiced in the tradition of cultures long extinct. Pat was not even the first she’d seen utilize a wand in a novel way, but it still intrigued her that he held it resting across his open palms, raised like an offering, and when a soft diffusion of light came off of its entire surface to drift down over Olyphant’s body like fog.

Anaru reached past the witch to lay four gemstones carved with runes on Olyphant’s chest. Gooseflesh rose on Lily’s arms when the runes began to glow, and she wondered if it was something any one could see, or a side effect of her cultivated sensitivity.

Olyphant gasped and sat up, the runes tumbling off of his body. The witch groaned and slumped to the side, and Anaru caught her before she could fall out of her chair. Pat opened his eyes, and Lily watched him pocket his wand, his hands shaking, before he reached out to clasp Olyphant’s shoulder.

“Thank you, my dears,” Olyphant panted, his voice several octaves higher than Lily had been expecting. He stared around the room, and his gaze found Lily and narrowed as though he didn’t trust his eyes. “Ah, this is…?”

“Lily Potter, sir,” she said softly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person.”

******************

Lily had to wait until the next day to see Olyphant’s books. Fortunately, he wasn’t reluctant to show off his treasures; Lily had never liked forcing people to do anything, even when she did it in a way that made them think it was their idea. Apparently near-death-by-disembodied-soul was a taxing experience, and he had fallen asleep within a few moments of making Lily’s acquaintance. She thanked the Maori she had met and passed through the portal to the empty valley, hiked up to her hotel, and took a long swim in the pool. She felt excitable and restless, a cousin to the feeling that would lead her to catch the eye of one of the men admiring her from across the water, but not quite close enough. Instead she swam until she felt boneless and cold, and then wrapped herself tightly in a towel and went up to her room. She opened her leather bag and summoned the Muggle novel she’d been reading, but it failed to hold her interest. After a minute or so of consideration, she wriggled back into her jeans and apparated to the wizarding district in Wellington. The apparition point was to one side of a massive, three-sided outdoor fireplace that had once been an international floo, in the center of a sleepy village square. Like the Muggle parts of the city, the quarter was a startling combination of modern architecture and traditional, but even the older buildings were so much newer than those of Diagon Alley, Lily’s baseline, that she found it all very clean and bright.

It had been four days since she had checked for post. It came through some combination of channels to Australia and was then brought by a mail carrier via flight, which meant it was as much as two weeks old by the time Lily saw it. She expected a letter from Remus telling her that Harry was fine two weeks ago, and nothing more.

However, as she put in her request with the stout wizard a head shorter than her manning the counter at the post station, he handed her three letters. She knew two immediately by their handwriting and seal – one from Remus, and one from Harry himself. She tore them open and devoured them in turn, wilting with relief when there was only good news. Tucking them in a pocket to reread with more care later, Lily turned the third item over in her hands. It was a flat envelope with a Muggle postage stamp on one side, and she recognized it as having been sent to her Muggle address, then processed for owl post by the Ministry. It was an expensive surface that she only utilized on rare occasions. That was how she knew who it must be from.

Lily’s fingers trembled as she opened the envelope and slowly read the message there. It was from the Muggle investigator she had finally decided to hire, just in case Quirrell left a Muggle paper trail where he had succeeded in clearing his magical one. It had been a long shot, a whim, and so costly she had almost decided against it again at the last minute. But she had gone through with it just in case, and now she had a note in neat print listing an inn in a remote area of Albania where a Q. Quirrell had spent two nights, and Muggle newspaper clippings from the months prior to that time detailing reports of a strange and frightening presence in the forests surrounding the same inn.


	11. Lily, Part II

When Lily came through the portal to the village the following morning, only Janet was there to greet her. She was wearing a blue, short-sleeved golf shirt with a Nike emblem on the pocket, and a grass skirt like the one the men had changed into the day before to cast the spells over Olyphant. The combination suited her. They smiled at one another, and then walked side by side toward the village.

“At our meal last night, Olyphant told us about some of your work,” Janet said. “All your post-war accomplishments.”

Lily smiled. Being famous for being Harry’s mother was complicated for her; she almost couldn’t blame people for thinking of Harry as her greatest achievement, because in certain ways she felt the same. But only in the ways of every mother of a bright, kind and talented child, and the people familiar with her family as a list of famous names didn’t even know about his best qualities, or his worst, for that matter. She responded differently to overtures that were based on her work and research, which she thought of as only having to do with her own talent and effort.

“‘Accomplishments’ might be an exaggeration,” Lily said with a smile. “Are you an academic?”

Janet seemed surprised by the possibility. “No,” she said. “I have never left this part of New Zealand. I am what my people call a low mage. My magic is rooted in my ancestry, and I can only channel it in certain ways and at certain times. Some low mages have traveled too far from their homelands, and lost their abilities altogether.” She shuddered. “I would never risk it.”

“You were educated here, then, in the village? Magically educated, I mean.”

Janet shot Lily a puzzled look. “Yes, but there is only one education for all children in my part of our _Iwi_. Tribe. I was also taught by my mother and grandmother. They were leaders of this village before me, and I earned the title when I came of age.”

Lily privately thought that it wasn’t fair to classify a witch as a “low mage” without a formal education, and from what she had surmised, not even exposure to a wand. Lily knew plenty of skilled magical people who had barely experienced their magic before they were handed a wand. But she also had learned from her world travels that it was at worst idiotic and at best impolite to doubt the efficacy of other magical schools of thought, so she merely nodded, and tried to say something that was both honest and respectful.

“There is something deeply powerful about a person’s homeland.” She did believe that, at least on an emotional level. But Lily also trusted the experts in ley lines who said that there was no difference in the quality or substance of magic in different parts of the world – meaning that she doubted that Janet’s inherent magical abilities could ever be lost by straying from home. It sounded more like a legend intended to keep people close, and it wasn’t the first variant Lily had heard.

Janet nodded, then shifted course. “I do find Olyphant’s work interesting, and what he said of yours, too, even if I’m not trained enough to contribute,” Janet said. “Actually, I’ve been hoping to tour his library ever since he arrived here, but haven’t wanted to inconvenience him out of curiosity alone. If it’s all right with you, I’m going to come along when he takes you down. I won’t interrupt, but I would like to see his collection.”

“Of course I don’t mind,” Lily said, and it was true. She was surprised Janet had felt the need to ask at all – it was none of Lily’s business who Olyphant let around his books. Before she could puzzle it out any further, they were in the little village, which was more active than it had been at the same hour the morning before. Six children of varying ages were kicking a football around the central building, and there were a handful of adults conversing around its entrance. Olyphant’s house, quiet and shuttered the day before, had the windows and door thrown open. Through the doorway, Lily heard Olyphant and Pat speaking before she saw them.

They both looked much better than they had the day before. Pat was back in his European Muggle-standard attire, and Olyphant was wearing a truly horrifying orange Hawaiian shirt and greenish khaki cargo shorts. His professorial face and unkempt hair were so ill-match to the attire that Lily had to stifle a laugh. She would have been more successful if she hadn’t caught Janet’s knowing grin as she averted her eyes.

“Good morning, my dear!” Olyphant exclaimed, turning to seize her hands in a slightly damp grip. He was lightly perspiring at his brow as well, which made Lily wonder if he had truly recovered from whatever physical effects he might have experienced after a prolonged detachment from his body. But then, it could be that he didn’t have a good tolerance for heat. He did look rested compared to the previous afternoon, when he had told her faintly that it would be better if she saw the journal herself rather than try to ask Olyphant questions when his answers might lose something in translation.

“Good morning,” Lily said, nodding first at Olyphant and then at Pat. Janet sat on the undersized sofa and crossed her long brown legs. Olyphant released her hands and gestured to the furniture.

“Please, sit, sit. Would you like some water, or juice? I don’t have any milk on hand, I’m afraid.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Lily said, hesitating a moment before sitting next to Janet. Olyphant dropped into a chair and Pat stood to one side, leaning against the wall. The room felt small with four people in it, but Lily could tell the only one unused to entertaining in close quarters was Olyphant. “Are you feeling well? I can’t say that I have any idea what the side effects of your experience over the past few days might be, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were significant.”

“You’re too kind, my dear. No, I’m quite all right, as it turns out; the rest of a body unencumbered by emotion is truly complete, and I was further held in stasis by dear Erica’s effort.”

Erica, the witch who had been in a trancelike state at Olyphant’s bedside, had been introduced to Lily the afternoon before, when the initial excitement of Olyphant’s revival had passed. She was even younger than Lily had first assumed – only nineteen - and deeply powerful, though she too referred to herself as a “mage” and described her abilities as linked to the land. She did not channel her power with a wand or any other conduit.

“Nonetheless, it is generous of you to indulge me so soon. I have made arrangements to pick up a port key in Wellington first thing tomorrow morning.” It was the earliest she’d been able to manage. She felt the Muggle investigator’s words had been emblazoned on the back of her eyelids; she had barely slept for seeing them.

“Well then, we shouldn’t delay,” Olyphant said, getting back to his feet but giving Lily a staying gesture when she started to rise too. “Pat and I will bring the trunk to you, shall we? There is more space here after all.”

Pat and Olyphant left the room, then reappeared with a large traveling trunk between them. Janet pushed the chairs back against the wall, and Pat arranged the chest in the vacated space. Olyphant raised the lid, produced his wand and waved it once. A green carpet immediately rose out of the trunk like an adder, then spilled over the side and unrolled, visibly stiffening to form a sturdy, gently sloping ramp.

“Come along, then,” he said cheerfully, and Janet and Lily followed him down into the ample wizarding space that was concealed by the visible bounds of the trunk.

It wasn’t her area, but Lily had always found the study of expansion and wizarding space to be quite fascinating. She knew that there were distinct categories of spells for objects in stasis, such as houses, and objects intended to be portable, such as tents and trunks. One of her most prized possessions, though its value was as much sentimental as monetary, was the outwardly simple hide bag she took with her everywhere. It could hold nearly a ton of shrunken objects without feeling like it weighed more than a couple of pounds, but the underlying magic was incredibly simple and weak in contrast to Olyphant’s trunk. She knew right away it was ancient and that some of the charms used to build it would be terribly illegal, but she tried to set aside her aversion to certain types of dark spells and surrender to awe instead.

It was an awe-inspiring place, to say the very least. If she hadn’t passed through nothing more than thin air to begin descending the stairs, Lily would have been convinced nothing short of a portal could connect the shabby living room on a distant island to the palatial green-carpeted staircase she was descending into what looked for all the world like the private library in a fine and ancient manor. Near-black wood paneling covered the portions of the walls that weren’t shelving, the carved bannister under her hand was smooth and warm to the touch, and the room spread out before her was the size of the Great Hall at Hogwarts. The room was at least three stories high, though the staircase emerged roughly ten feet from the floor. Narrow windows of stained glass diffused some sort of spelled light in every direction.

“Oh, my,” Lily breathed, turning wide eyes on Olyphant. “This is wonderful.”

“Thank you, my dear,” said Olyphant, rather humbly. “The collection is largely my own, but the trunk is an old family heirloom. It has been utilized for many purposes over many generations, but I have always thought it quite well-suited for a library.”

Olyphant gave them a brief tour, and Lily tried to rein in her impatience. The library was certainly impressive on at least a dozen levels, and under other circumstances she would have been happy to wander and listen to Olyphant’s anecdotes, but as it was, after a few minutes she was entirely consumed by the urgency of seeing the journals firsthand. It was only knowing that the port key wouldn’t be ready any faster than the following morning that kept her from interrupting. As it was, Janet had wanted her tour and Lily couldn’t bear to cut it short. She did her best to process and respond to Olyphant’s musings, and enjoy the masterpiece of magic that the space truly was.

Finally, Olyphant left Janet to browse at will and led Lily to another part of the room, rather near the stairway, where a large desk was suddenly illuminated by two lamps as they drew close. He spoke something Lily couldn’t make out over one of the drawers, and then reached inside to draw out a leather-bound journal of obvious age with reverence. He laid it carefully atop the desk, drew out a chair, and gestured for Lily to join him.

“Of course what is recorded here can be quite…shocking, and unpleasant, but.” He bit his lip, a gleam in his eyes that Lily tried not to find disturbing. She knew that thrilling and horrifying could be close cousins. Look at what the Muggles had long considered entertaining, after all.

“Can you show me the index you mentioned in your book?” Lily clasped her hands together in her lap, trying to ease their trembling. She gazed at the journal and saw that a name was etched into the leather cover: Ollyver Kestral.

“Well, there is nothing to _show_ , you see. You need only…” he reached past Lily and brushed his thumb against the corner of the journal, and it burst open and flipped to a page near the center. The words in the middle of the page seemed to glow. “It is not…benevolent magic. But, the wards should contain it.”

Lily dug her fingernails into her palms. “Not benevolent, to put it lightly,” she said, glad her voice didn’t betray how affected she was. She sounded calm, curious, and not at all accusatory, though they both knew that he hadn’t detailed the nature of the index for obvious reasons. A prohibited artefact lay on the table before them, and Lily was surprised for that reason that Olyphant had willingly shown it to her at all.

“The wards will also prevent you from acting to deprive me of the benefit of the possessions in this space,” Olyphant said lightly. She could smell his sweat, unpleasantly sweet, and felt the hair rise slowly on the back of her neck. He had answered the question left deliberately unasked. Lily would not be able to speak the words to incriminate him, apparently. She chastised herself for not studying the wards more carefully when she came in, but then, all she had wanted was the defense of ignorance, and now she had the defense of futility.

Lily’s hand moved over the beadwork on her hide bag, even though she already knew the warnings there had not been triggered. She didn’t have to touch the imbued beads there to receive their message when a malignant spell was near, and they had never failed her before, no matter how old or advanced the magic. The room couldn’t hurt her, and if Olyphant intended to, at least he wasn’t in the middle of casting anything at the moment.

Yet. Lily drew away from the desk but tamped down the urge to palm her wand. When she was facing Olyphant once more, she took a deep breath and met his steady gaze. “You might have said,” she managed after a moment. “So I could be prepared.”

“That isn’t how the magic works. If I told you, you could repeat what I had said. If you saw it yourself, in here…” he looked down at the journal the way a father might look at a favorite child, which did nothing to soothe Lily’s uneasiness. “Well, that is safest, for all of us, and most especially for the artefact. You forget, also, that I have read your work. I would never have brought you here if I didn’t know that you could appreciate it as so few others can, and that pleases me.”

Lily _did_ believe, as she had advocated in writing, that to categorize magic by “light” and “dark” was misleading and a misnomer in some cases. But that was because there was so much space on a wide spectrum, and the item on the desk was wreathed in magic that strayed near the furthest reaches on the “dark” side of that scale. It had the terrible allure of something forged from a human sacrifice, Lily was sure. She wished the quality of such magic wasn’t so familiar to her.

But that didn’t mean it was without value, or the power to be used as a force of good; she knew that, as well as she knew the rest of it. Satisfied that Olyphant had no nefarious intent, at least for now, Lily turned back toward the book, studying it for a long moment. Then she cast a protective spell on her right hand, and reached out and touched the page gingerly with the tip of her index finger.

The journal’s pages, clearly made of a fairly unrefined parchment, were as crisp and unblemished as though the journal had been bound five days instead of five hundred years before. It had been built with strong protective charms, then, Lily thought. She watched the pages spread open, and the journal seemed to lean toward her, hungry to be read.

Olyphant moved back politely so that Lily could ease back into the chair, lean forward over the journal, and, struggling briefly with the ancient dialect, begin to read.

“It says the experiments were done on Muggles,” she said softly. “I assumed as much.”

“Muggles at first,” Olyphant corrected softly. “Turn the page.”

Lily did, trying to let the details roll over her shoulders. _Five subjects were placed underwater; five more were buried in the soil; yet five more were chained to rock. All were of one Muggle character, being between twelve and sixteen years of age and all female, purchased at a fair price and guaranteed to be sane and sound. Another five were of the aforementioned age and known to be of pure blood, but Cursed._

“Cursed?” Lily said, looking up. “But…”

“What Squibs were sometimes called, at the time,” Olyphant explained, and had the grace to look unsettled by the idea. “During that era, pure blood families often killed Squib offspring at birth, but just as often they were marketed as Muggle slaves.”

Nauseated, Lily nodded. Of course, slavery wasn’t unusual at the time, but the idea of giving up a baby just because… “Wait. How would anyone even know a newborn was a Squib? Signs of magic are rarely present in a young baby. They can take years to develop.”

“There are spells for that, my dear, certainly you’re aware. Though not without risk.”

That explained it, then. James might have mentioned a spell to foresee Harry’s magical inclinations, or lack thereof, in the year they had spent together, but not if it could cause any harm. Lily hoped that the Potters were innocent in ways so few pure blood families were, but she knew better. No family maintained its pure blood status for thousands of years without taking the principals of blood purity seriously to a certain degree. Lily had never met James’s parents, as they had died abruptly before she and James were even friends at school. But she knew enough to be certain they never would have approved of her marrying James, the sole heir to the house with lineage traceable as far back as any wizard’s; an unblemished pedigree.

Forcing her own life from the foreground of her thoughts, Lily cast the spell she had learned when she first began working with primary sources as an apprentice historian, and the words took on a faint violet glow that pulsed once and turned blue. It verified that the one who had written the words had believed them to be true. Lily swallowed and read on.

_When cast upon those Muggle subjects, the effect of the great curse was their deaths, with no sign of the conveyance of any portion of soul to the animal vessel; but when cast upon those Cursed subjects, the effect was death in only two cases and in the other three, a clear disquiet and anxiety in the animal vessels and, upon additional casting, proof of the human experience in the animal vessels which dissipated after a fortnight of observation, at which time the Cursed subjects did wither in body and die before nightfall._

Hand shaking, Lily turned the page. The experiments hadn’t stopped there; series after series of helpless enslaved Squibs had been subjected to variations on the theme, testing with different “animal vessels” according to species, imbuing the human and animal vessels with various potions, until the journal declared “success” in rapturous tones:

_And now, after countless days and nights in service to no other cause, I am triumphant. It is now one hundred days after the conveyance according to the exchange of magic variant of my great curse, and the animal vessels – without regard to type or kind – all contain the human element, with no signs of dissipation, while the bodies rest in stasis. The question now is whether the essential transference may be made, as I shall know on the morrow. No subject shall be returned to the original body; and therefore I shall prove that more than a mere reversal is possible, but rather that the soul may be transferred to the select host. I cannot be sure that the magic will prove out tomorrow but I feel in my own spirit a deep certainty that it will be so._

“There was likely another volume, lost to the ages,” Olyphant murmured, when Lily lifted her gaze from the last page. “One is tempted to despair that it is gone, but then one must recall our great fortune in having any morsel of such a tremendous story survive to be retold.” When Lily moved away from the desk, Olyphant gently removed the journal back to its drawer.

Ollyver Kestral had detailed the incantations and preparations, but Lily had made no effort to record them. She had learned that it was best to avoid the assimilation of dark spells and rituals into the rest of her mental catalogue, even if she could not fathom ever being tempted to perform them. Knowledge alone could be dangerous, as she had witnessed time and time again.

“The experiments never worked if the bodies were destroyed, or if the stasis failed and they expired naturally.” Lily was thinking aloud. She was relieved, because it was evidence that Voldemort could not have lingered in any reversible manner, as his body, disfigured by the force of the disrupted killing curse, had been there with James’s when Lily staggered into Harry’s room in the aftermath. Forcing the images aside, she looked up at Olyphant.

“The soul requires a tether,” Olyphant agreed. “Others who studied Kestral’s works have hypothesized that the body is just one potential tether. Family bonds forged in magic are thought to be another way, potentially, to confine the soul, since some who are subject to such bonds have described periods wherein their deceased bonded seems to linger with them.”

Lily thought that grieving bonded mates were less than reliable sources of information, considering her personal experience, but didn’t argue. “How many ‘others’ have seen the journals, since they came into your possession?”

“Only a handful, my dear. The academics who peer-reviewed my books verified the information, of course, but soul magic has not been a celebrated topic for most of my lifetime. Few are so much as curious.” He scoffed. “When the problem faced by soul magic is mere mortality, I cannot understand why it isn’t the passion of every academic, but humanity is hopelessly preoccupied by short-term gratification.”

“It is misunderstood, and dangerous as a result,” Lily murmured, staring at the drawer where the journal now lay. “Aside from being illegal in most of Europe,” she added, voice deliberately neutral. She leaned against the desk and met Olyphant’s gaze directly. “You haven’t written about the killing curse.”

“ _Avada kedavra_?” Olyphant asked, as though surprised. He folded his arms, looking unbearably out of place in the stately room, thrumming with ancient magic, in his bright-patterned shirt. “I agree with the prevailing opinion. It is powerful in its simplicity. It severs body from soul – the soul taking with it the animating force of the body.”

“That is soul magic, is it not?”

“Well,” Olyphant said, as though surprised by the question. He pursed his lips and his gaze went distant with thought. After a moment, he blinked and nodded. “I suppose, since the body and soul juncture is the target of the magic.”

“Kestral poisoned the subjects, and at the moment of death, he put their bodies in stasis. Would his results have been reproducible if he had cast the killing curse instead?”

“Kestral’s ‘poison’ was a potion with multiple effects. It had the secondary effect of coaxing the animating force to remain with the body, keeping it alive past the moment of the soul’s departure.”

“The tether,” Lily murmured. “But a…variant of the killing curse, say?”

Olyphant had begun to give Lily a very particular look. “A rebounded curse, perhaps?”

Lily schooled her face into a still mask, and after several moments of intense eye contact, she nodded. “Perhaps.”

“There were many variables that Kestral never generated in the studies in that journal,” Olyphant said quietly. “What stronger bond might there be, for example, between a magically expunged soul of a wizard, rather than a Squib, with this realm? What if that wizard was quite powerful, in his middle age, and determined, rather than a teenaged Squib born into slavery? The realm of the afterlife is a mystery in a thousand different ways, my dear, and of course soul magic is a part of that great unknown. Is it possible that a powerful dark wizard might remain bound to this plane even without his physical body’s survival? I would say, of course it is, however unlikely.”

Lily nodded; there was nothing in what he had said that represented a new idea, or a conclusion, but hearing another person speak of the possibility of Voldemort returning, however remote, made it seem more real than it had when it existed solely in her mind.

Even with Remus and Sirius, they had skirted the central issue. They worried that Quirrell was some sort of zealot who might be interested in avenging Voldemort, or getting close to Harry because of his part in Voldemort’s death, or because Quirrell might have Death Eater ties interested in the fate of the Boy Who Lived. Certainly Death Eaters lived on, and continued to identify themselves as such, and might one day coalesce behind another leader even if Voldemort himself remained dead.

It was only after reviewing Olyphant’s work that the theory of prolonged disembodiment and possession suggested any real method by which Voldemort might have escaped death, the way those closest to him had insisted he could. Story told that Bellatrix Lestrange had only laughed madly for days upon being told her dark lord was dead at last.

“He wrote that the presence of humanity was detectable in the animal vessels, but he didn’t list the spells he used for that detection.”

“There’s only one, and it was as commonly known then as it is now. _Revelio forma animagi_.”

Lily did know the spell, but it was for detecting a human disguised as their animagus. The more she thought about it, though, the more she understood how it could have the same effect upon a creature with a human soul transposed into its physical body. James and Sirius had always delighted in their animagi, but the prospect of becoming inadvertently trapped in another body had horrified Lily so completely she had never relented to James’s offers to help her seek her own animagus, nor had she been sincerely curious since.

“Thank you,” Lily said, feeling a little faint, but she nonetheless levered herself off the desk and stood unsupported, rubbing at the gooseflesh on her forearms. “It is an incredible artefact, frightening though its creator must have been.”

Olyphant nodded, but Lily couldn’t help wondering if he didn’t admire Kestral more than he abhorred him. There was something about the way he had handled the journal…but then, she had long ago accepted that the majority of wizards were attracted to dark magic, and the majority of humans Muggle and wizard alike were attracted to violence and horror, as spectators if not participants. Mindful that she was at the bottom of a traveling trunk, Lily felt claustrophobia descend on her all at once, and she was grateful when Janet appeared, tour complete, and they were mounting the stairs.

Lily had a letter to write, and a port key to Albania to catch.


	12. Lily, Part III

8 April 1992

Dear Lil,

We’re relieved to find that you’re back within an owl’s range, although the one you sent us did take a half-day’s rest in the tree in the front garden before setting off again. We chose Remy for this delivery since he’s younger, if less diligent, than Remus’s grouchy old horned owl. Send a reply back if you can, though we know you’re not always able when you’re in the field. Harry told us Hedwig came back with a letter unopened, but he had also instructed her not to disturb you unless you were fully alone. We told him you weren’t in a sensitive environment, but he worries about you, although he did say that his Cherokee pouch is reassuring him with the green smoke for “safe” every time he asks you for a signal. In any case, he seems to be doing very well, and we were able to floo call him last Saturday. Zack dominated the conversation but it was clear Harry is in good spirits and threw some friendly remarks over his shoulder at a boy in the common room named Blaise. I still cringe at the idea of him befriending Slytherins, but of course I then remember that he’s one himself and know the House must have evolved substantially since our Hogwarts days.

Of course we are hoping you’ll be returning soon, in plenty of time to supervise this ritual contest fiasco that Dumbledore set in motion. I know you and Remus want to blame that young teacher, but honestly, when has the Headmaster ever done anything with that school on anyone’s advice but his own? Minerva says that she and Flitwick can manage the controlled environment without you, but I’m not so sure. I learned just enough listening to lectures here and there at the summit to know that it’s a more complex task than it seems at first, and can’t imagine an excess of caution isn’t warranted under the circumstances.

Sirius

 

13 April 1992

Dear Lily,

Remy returned with Sirius’s note from last week unopened, and looking a little haggard. We’ve decided to send our more diligent animal this week with the old letter enclosed. Nothing to update you on since, except that we can’t help but worry for you.

Love,

Remus

 

16 April 1992

Lily,

Another owl returned with undelivered post; please respond to reassure us you’re well.

Remus

***********

Lily departed from the little village of Sekret and set off into the wilderness three days before she had promised herself to be back in London, preparing to assist Hogwarts in installing its controlled environment and seeing Harry’s ritual. She had spent more than two weeks making forays into the permeating quiet and dappled light that sheltered under the ancient trees, the eerie ambiance of the Forbidden Forest but with an added loneliness she credited to its nonmagical character. The people in the village didn’t remember anything helpful about Quirnius Quirrell but that he spent many days hiking in the woods, until abruptly, he was gone. Other tourists said they had once come upon him waving a slender branch over a nest of snakes, what seemed to them a foolhardy, deliberate provocation, but otherwise he had seemed an unassuming if quiet and solitary traveler.

The people did have their own stories about the woods, of course, as the private investigator had described. Hikers suffered brief bouts of disorientation or lack of consciousness, and their companions, observing them, reported an unearthly quality to their eyes and, in one case, an inhuman hissing that went on for several moments. The incidents all ended the same: within a few minutes, the subject fainted, and upon revival, recalled nothing of what they had done during the interlude.

“When did this last happen?” Lily had asked the innkeeper a few nights before, taking dinner at a little table for one outside the white stucco, tile-roofed building, eating some sort of delicious and unrecognizable local cuisine while he leaned against the window and chattered happily about the “ghost stories” that so delighted him. Lily had liberally used translation charms while in Sekret, somehow glossing over how someone so clearly English spoke Albanian so well. She hadn’t done enough research for a convincing back story.

“Not for several months,” the innkeeper confessed, his thick black moustache drooping with his frown. “Too bad. Tourists love the thought of a haunted forest, and if there isn’t some steady hysteria, our reputation will fade. Tea?”

Now, Lily wondered what _she_ hoped to find. She wore her bag close to her body, and had a protective beaded bracelet wrapped around her right wrist for good measure. She didn’t think she could be possessed as easily as an unsuspecting Muggle, if that’s what had really happened, but she also didn’t see any reason to take chances. It already felt foolhardy, given her suspicions, to be roaming the forests alone. Also, she knew Remus and Sirius well enough to be sure they were trying to send owls, and she hadn’t seen one since arriving in Sekret. Assumedly, the nation of eastern European wizards had determined this to be one of their non-magical areas, warded against owl post. A violently anti-magic past meant that they didn’t trust wizards and witches native or foreign to exercise sufficient discretion, and in these remote places many of the Muggles associated owls with magic.

Lily did know that Quirrell had not seemed to spend more than a day at a time in the forest, so it could be surmised he had never gone further than a half-day’s walk from the village. Of course, he could have had a broom under disillusionment, or Apparated, possibly, if his destination was one already known to him. But if he was exploring, as Lily was almost certain, the range was logical. She plotted the forest into sections searchable a day at a time with a cartographer’s charm, and planned to comb the area over the course of six days using a variety of tracking charms that only the aurors were supposed to know.

This was her fifth day, and she had fallen into such a weary routine that she didn’t notice the spell alerting for several seconds, instead continuing to step over branches and dodge the more substantial undergrowth while curiously wondering what was buzzing in her right ear.

As soon as she processed what she was hearing, Lily came to a standstill, blinked, and lifted her wand. “ _Indico_ ,” she incanted, a barely audible murmur. A blue light streaked abruptly from the tip of her wand off to her immediate right, arching and landing a hundred feet distant where it pooled into a circle on the ground about the size of a melon, and pulsed urgently.

Lily approached cautiously, casting the strongest shield she could manage while maintaining the sensory spell and occluding with all her remaining might, but as she leaned over the stretch of soil illuminated by her indicator spell, she knew right away that the artefact wouldn’t turn her body over to the dark lord, and further, that the dark lord wasn’t near.

Lily had learned under unfortunate circumstances the exact, inimitable appearance of a seeking rune, etched by powerful magic into the rare and impossibly valuable red diamond, this one so large it was the size of Lily’s fist. She dropped her spell just so that she could confirm the color, and the neutral shine of its surface. If its subject was close, it would be glowing faintly in contented recognition. She knew seeking runes had a variety of mysterious uses, but the most famous was the ability, once linked with a subject, to assist an Apparition from any distance, whether or not the subject had ever visited the location before. The historical wizard who had made them famous was the Viking Slenik, who could Apparate onto the deck of his ship from any location, allowing him to escape with untold treasures until his trusted crew one day turned on him and dropped his seeking rune overboard, where presumably he joined it on the ocean floor.

Lily felt the wards only now that she was this close, and was glad she had neither reason nor desire to collect the rune. It would take someone more powerful than she to work through the spells, and even then, the thought of even a noncorporeal dark lord arriving while Lily was left to face him alone made her see stars.

Stumbling backward, Lily reminded herself that it was sheer conjecture to assume that Voldemort had been in these woods, possessing people and conversing with snakes. Just because Quirrell may have thought so, didn’t mean it was truth. There were so many artefacts lost in Muggle landscapes that she ought to be surprised this was the only one she had found after searching so many square miles, rather than shocked by finding one at all. But she couldn’t shake the feeling she had of terrible confirmation.

Taking note of the location with her cartography charm and marking the map, Lily hurried back toward the village. From the point in the woods where she had let herself linger in her shock, it was going to be a strain to return to the inn before dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you guys have preferred sticking with Harry's POV? I'm outlining the next installment and trying to decide to what extent to include the adults. I am planning to advance the story in time after this installment, so that Harry etc. will be going into fourth year.


	13. Lily Part IV

It was still dark the morning of Harry’s ritual contest when Lily Apparated into Hogsmeade. It would have been better to use the floo, since apparition took a magical toll, and Lily had the sense she needed all the power in reserve that she could manage. But it was too early to use public floos since all the businesses that had them were still closed, and the night before she had been too exhausted from the long days in Albania and the strain of Apparating back to pick herself up off the sofa at 12 Grimmauld Place. A scruffy looking black owl that she recognized at once was loitering at the front door when she checked. The bird had clearly waited a few days and devoured several scraps of beef roast while Lily read.

The letter was succinct and from Severus, confirming their arrangement at sunrise the next morning. Lily fingered the parchment thoughtfully, her thoughts darting unbidden to the first letter she had received from this adult version of Severus Snape who taught at Hogwarts and called himself her servant. The tone of that first letter was never mirrored in their correspondence since, except in the salutation. Certainly he gave away nothing when they met in person, aside of course from that unwavering intensity that she wasn’t certain she could take personally. She hadn’t observed him in the presence of anyone else except Harry, with whom he was predictably curt, for over a decade. Lily had always felt that she could see Severus in a way no one else could when she had been young, but when James finally succeeded in capturing her attention, she had found herself easily convinced that the majority’s conclusion about Severus was the right one, and she had been imagining her long-held impression before.

Sometimes Harry wallowed in the emotional mire that was his space camp experience, and thinking of the way Lily had stamped out her friendship with Severus was the closest she could come to commiserating. She had not been her best self, but she had not been without her reasons; and most of all she had been very young. When Severus betrayed her so enormously those years later, going to Voldemort and taking the mark, it had been almost a relief for Lily. Retroactive justification for how she had treated him, proof James and his friends were right all along.

Naturally it was more complicated than that. Things always were. And now she reassured herself that even if Quirrell was close to Harry, Severus was closer still, and he would keep Harry safe for his mother’s sake. She was sure of that, even if there was nothing else about Severus of which she could be sure at all.

Lily rarely wore robes, but she always wore them to Hogwarts, over something traditional like a dress or wool trousers, flared and shapeless. Today was no exception, and she had chosen black trousers and a white button down shirt, the effect landing so close to the Hogwarts student uniform that when she looked down at herself and realized it in Hogsmeade she almost Disapparated back to London to change. Confused by the ridiculous impulse, she set up the road to the school instead. She was conditioned to brisk walks in foreign wilderness now. She all but jogged to the gates and wasn’t at all short of breath. She felt like she could sprint the winding staircase to Gryffindor tower twelve times and only feel exhilarated. Of course, instead, she only paused at the entrance where a tall, still figure waited for her, black eyes direct in a long pale face.

“Good evening,” he said, his voice a low rumble. Lily nodded.

“Severus,” she said evenly, as she always did. She had not heard him call her anything at all in their few encounters since Harry began at Hogwarts. “Lily,” he had said only once or twice in their lives, and always seemed to shock himself when it happened. He had called her “Evans” for the most part when they were children, or avoided calling her anything at all, the way he did now. “Evans” would seem familiar, now, she thought; a nickname was all it was anymore. She had a feeling he would rather swallow a deadly potion than call her “Potter.”

“I’ll show you inside,” Severus said shortly, turned with a jerk and strode up the stairs. Lily was rather tall among women, but she thought Severus must have eight inches on her, and most of it in his legs. She was several feet behind him as they entered the castle, and had to blink in the shadows for several seconds before she could find him again in the dark corridor. None of the torches were lit; only the moonlight through the tall windows provided light, and somehow it seemed wrong to cast _lumos_ when Severus hadn’t. She walked towards him and when she was within arm’s length, he started walking too, leading her to the Great Hall where the barely audible hum and faint rose glow of a large magical field dominated the large room.

Lily had thought some of the other staff who had raised the environment might be there, but she saw only young Professor Quirrell, whose turbaned head turned slowly in her direction, the expression careful and pleasant.

“Mrs. Potter,” he said, in his rather high voice, his arms folded so that his hands were hidden by the standard dark robes of a Hogwarts staff member. He was quite young, just a few years out of school, Lily recalled, but he had dark circles beneath his eyes and was thinner than when she had first met him. Hair rose on Lily’s arms, and she was comforted to sense the solid presence of Severus behind her, even standing several feet away.

“Hello, Professor Quirrell,” Lily said, relieved that her own voice was so steady and measured, even as her heart hammered noisily in her ears. With a casual posture that took every effort to effect, she turned away from Quirrell and circled the field, her wand waving, her lips moving around the shape of the incantations, though she cast worldlessly.

“Please call me Quirnius,” said the young man, as he had the first time they had met. She sensed his attention as she completed her evaluation of the environment, trying not to let herself be completely distracted by him – after all, her eleven-year-old son _was_ going to walk inside this atmosphere and trust it to diffuse an experimental ritual, for Merlin’s sake. It was no less of a threat to his immediate safety than the figure of Quirrell, even if all her deductions were about to prove correct.

“It is well done. Let me check the collateral fields,” she added, stepping away to the table where a dozen additional fields had been established for the purpose of storing the rituals’ byproducts for safety and evaluation before they were destroyed or removed from a secure atmosphere. They were also well done and firmly linked to the primary field. Lily pretended the process of checking them over was taking longer than it had, trying to figure out how to remove Quirrell to somewhere more private than the Great Hall, without leaving the controlled environment unsupervised. When she turned, she saw that Severus was casting _tempus_ with a scowl that deepened as he observed the time.

“Flitwick is late,” he announced, then divided a careful glance between Lily and Quirrell. Lily nodded, folded her arms, and smiled sunnily at Quirrell. Severus hesitated, but only for a moment. “We planned to review the medical stasis charm again to ensure I have it internalized in the rather likely event that this delightful assignment results in a maimed student.” He looked at Lily. “Would you mind carrying the tray of universal antidote I brewed last night up from my private brewing room? Your levitation charm is the only one I would trust. No offense, Quirrell.”

“I would be happy to,” Lily said smoothly, then turned to Quirrell. “So long as the Professor is available to come with me. I imagine the wards around the brewing room won’t admit non-faculty.”

“I, well, y-y-yes, I w-would be happy to,” Quirrell said, his characteristic stutter a little more intense than Lily remembered. She gestured for him to lead the way.

“I know I’m headed toward the dungeons, but that’s really as much as I can remember from my school days,” she explained with a rueful smile, and Quirrell nodded at Severus then started toward the corridor off the Great Hall. Lily fell into step behind him, sharing a final stare with Severus that left her feeling oddly off balance. She had forgotten how he trusted her to take care of herself. She had been a better student than James and his Marauders and was a better practitioner than Sirius and Remus now, but they had always and were still inclined to insert themselves between her and any threat as though she were some sort of damsel. It was annoying.

“Your Harry is qu-qu-quite the d-d-d-d-defense student,” Quirrell was saying, his voice ringing off the stone, the stutter increasingly pronounced. Lily fixed her gaze on the back of his turban and felt oddly sick; she looked to the side, over his shoulder, as they started down a wide stairwell toward the dungeon level.

“He’s always had an interest, and wards and certain curses are my area,” Lily said, deliberately answering the way she would if this was an ordinary Hogwarts Professor she was speaking with. “Thank you, of course. It is nice to hear that he’s behaving himself.”

“Well, I didn’t say that,” Quirrell remarked. “He seems to be d-d-drawn to t-t-t-trouble.”

“In what way?” Lily asked, more sharply than she had intended. They had descended the stairs and had to be close to Severus’s quarters by now; she had a vague notion that the Slytherin dorms were around here, since she had walked this way with Severus when they were new students at Hogwarts, before he’d awkwardly send her off so he could go to the entrance alone.

“Oh, I w-wasn’t being ent-t-tirely serious, Mrs. P-potter. Harmless pursuits, for the m-most part. Ah, here we are.” He opened a door, grimacing as one did when passing through strong wards even if they admitted you, and stepped inside a stark and tidy room clearly arranged for brewing.

Lily passed through the wards, as well, and then she said, in what she hoped were convincing tones of surprise, “Oh!”

Quirrell turned to look at her, brows raised. Lily smiled as though bemused. “These are one-way wards, Professor. It must have slipped Severus’s mind.”

Quirrell, froze, for a very brief moment, and the amiable mask he had worn so well in all their time together was transparent in that instant. Then he laughed softly and it fell back into place, and if Lily wasn’t already armed with so much evidence and already so nearly certain she might have second guessed what she had seen. But she was, and she didn’t.

“Slipped his mind. Yes.” He walked across the room and began to study the vials of potions ingredients, his back to her, as though fully absorbed. “I imagine he’ll realize his mistake straight away and be down before long.”

Lily folded her arms and remained near the door, leaning her hip against the wall. She noted that Quirrell’s stutter was absent, though she could detect no other change in his tone or manner.

“I imagine,” Lily said softly. “Until then, what a good opportunity we have. I realized in the past few months we have an area of interest in common, Professor. In fact I’ve just returned from a research venture in New Zealand where I was able to study the library of Damien Olyphant. I’m sure you’re familiar with his research?”

“Soul magic, isn’t it?” Quirrell said, looking over his shoulder with a characteristic expression of shy interest. He hadn’t missed a beat. “I have always found a certain allure in the most mysterious topics, yes. Nothing is more so than soul magic, but I can’t recall any of Sir Olyphant’s work in any detail. It has been some time since I read it, and it was only out of curiosity. Defense is my academic area, as you must know.”

“I’ve often thought the Hogwarts subjects to be rather arbitrarily drawn,” Lily said. It wasn’t time to draw him out, she didn’t know what she’d been thinking. She needed to wait for Severus. Her beaded bag, hidden against her side beneath her robes, was near to burning hot; the bracelet wound around her forearm scalding. She couldn’t help it; she drew her wand.

Quirnius Quirrell’s eyes watched her do it, and he did not seem surprised. When his hands flexed toward his hips, where a wand holster traditionally sat, Lily raised her wand deliberately, and he was still. Her _expelliarmus_ incanted, the innocuous, slightly stubby Ash wand rushed from the folds of Quirrell’s robes to her hand.

Lily met his nervous gaze, and waited. There had been no shortage of tense altercations in Lily’s life, even since the war. She never sought danger outright, but hadn't avoided it either, and the nature of her work sometimes led her into the midst of angry or unhinged witches and wizards with a healthy grasp of the darker arts. So she had her share of moments where she held someone at wandpoint, including someone who, like Quirrell, had been putting on a ruse. Some tried to maintain it, to laugh in startlement and ask what she must be thinking. More rarely, but more sensibly, in her opinion, the ruse disappeared right away. The pretense was such a waste of effort at that point, after all.

Lily wasn’t surprised when Quirrell adopted the latter course. His face relaxed, his mouth went slightly slack, and a voice that was not coming out of his mouth emanated in the room in a way that left Lily, despite all her experiences with danger and even Voldemort himself, trembling.

“Lily Evans Potter. Still too brave for your own good, I see,” said the voice, and even in the stone room and with Quirrell’s mouth unmoving, Lily knew the sound came from somewhere inside his body. It didn't fit with any of the many descriptions of possession she had read in recent months, but if Quirrell did go to him voluntarily, as she had begun to believe, then unusual effects were unsurprising.

“I don’t know about that,” Lily said. “I have your wand.”

“His wand, you mean. I do not need my servant’s wand to leave his unworthy body, girl,” the voice – Voldemort’s voice, she struggled to remind herself – admonished. “You cannot harm me, only him. And I have no care for him, now that he’s brought me to your trap, like a fool.”

Lily had the sudden thought that he was going to go, escape, and she shuddered with rage. “Then follow your rune,” she snapped. “But you might be surprised where it takes you.”

A bluff, of course. His rune was just where she had left it. Quirrell’s eyes narrowed, but the voice continued to come from some other part of him; a thin line of drool was descending down his slack jaw.

“You’re lying.” A pause that was soon filled with a high, bone-chilling chuckle. “If my wards had failed, I would know.”

“Would you?” Lily breathed. There are mechanisms for that, of course, but she didn’t know how well they would work if you didn’t have a body to link them to. She searched for something plausible enough to plant a seed of doubt. “There are periods where you are not experiencing everything Quirrell does, surely?”

“You cannot capture me, or harm me. _I cannot be killed_.”

“Mmm,” Lily said. “If you were so sure of that, I imagine you would have left your ‘servant’ by now.” Her eyes widened in sudden surprise. “You can’t, can you? It’s the wards on the room. They won’t let you leave with or without a body.”

“Clever, for a filthy mudblood,” Voldemort observed. “I imagine our Severus will be joining us soon, and he can assist me in dispatching you.” Lily wondered if Voldemort was as convinced of Severus’s loyalty as he seemed; wasn’t it obvious Severus had helped _her_? But then, she hadn’t told him the extent of her suspicions as to Quirrell. She’d misled him quite deliberately, rather, though she thought he might have figured it out despite her.

Lily took a wary backward step, her hand tightening around the unfamiliar wand, and cast _incarcerous_ , but in the same moment Quirrell – or Voldemort, or some combination of the two – threw himself to the floor and the spell did nothing more than set his turban askew. Lily cast a blasting curse that shredded the wooden table sheltering Quirrell’s body, and would likely have exploded a cabinet of colorful vials, except that all the shelving in the room appeared to be painstakingly protected with webs of spellwork and wards. Lily had time to see Quirrell’s face very clearly for a moment. He had control of his mouth again, and was murmuring something with both hands outstretched toward her – wandless magic – that gave her the sudden sensation of having two hands pressed firmly against her face, covering her eyes.

Blindly, Lily cast the strongest shield that she knew around herself and gripped both wands so tightly she couldn’t feel the difference between hers and Quirrell’s. Lily waved them both without thinking, and Quirrell’s – held awkwardly in her left hand – stung her palm sharply in rebellion and released a burst of miscast magic against the inside of the shield. Lily could feel the protective spell shattering just as she regained her vision, in time for Quirrell’s face to loom into view while his hand closed over her right wrist and _wrenched_ , while he plucked his wand from her left hand with the other.

Lily leaned back and then lurched forward, connecting her forehead with Quirrell’s nose in a practiced motion. As he reeled backward, he had his wand but at least she still had hers, too, and fired another _incarcerous_. This one stuck, and Quirrell, the magical bonds wound around him tightly from shoulder to heel, abruptly fell backward and lost consciousness when his head hit the stone floor.

Lily immediately kicked his fallen wand away from his body. At the same time, she had the near-physical sensation of something colliding with her occlumency the way a bird might strike a window. Reeling, she threw all her energy into occluding while the force struggled to penetrate, and then…

Lily heard the sound of a sharp inhalation of breath from someone standing in the doorway – a student, Slytherin tie, Harry’s age, a girl – and didn’t have time to shout a warning. It might not have worked, anyway, her stunned brain observed as though from a great distance. All the girl could see was that some strange woman had attacked her defense Professor. The child took a step forward and came into contact with the wards, which would normally admit no one but Severus, but which he had adjusted in order to accommodate Lily’s request. That contact with the barrier must have been enough, because the girl jerked, her eyes flashed, and then she turned a very direct stare on Lily. The borrowed mouth curved into a sinister smile, and then the child collapsed, too. An unwilling, sentient host must be beyond Voldemort, as it had appeared to be in the forest – but the girl had served as a stepping stone to get him through the wards, leaving Lily trapped alone and unable to follow him.

Delving into her heart as deeply as she could in that moment of panick, Lily cast a Patronus and sent it galloping off with terse instructions to find Severus Snape, then she leaned against the wall, left breathless by exertion and feeling drained of magic, but she had thought the Patronus needed as much power as she could give it to ensure it found Severus and engaged his attention. She imagined the doe in a shimmering charge past scores of students gathering for the rituals and hoped it found its way before the obstructions dissipated it. The reminder of James aside, she often thought a different Patronus would serve her better, preferably something with wings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One comment or kudos = fuel for 1,000 words! :)


	14. Lily Part V

Lily’s doe had only been gone a moment when Albus Dumbledore appeared in the doorway, immediately bending to cast a diagnostic spell over the Slytherin girl who still lay prone in the corridor. He wore glittering blue robes and an especially tall hat with a stiff peak. Apparently reassured by the results of his spell, he looked up from the child and studied Quirrell’s magically bound and prone body without alarm, but rather as though he had stumbled upon a curious weed along a manicured garden path.  

“Headmaster,” Lily said cautiously, tense at his demeanor but too gripped by urgency to stay quiet. “Severus’s wards won’t release you after you’re admitted, but we need to…that is, You-Know-Who was occupying Professor Quirrell’s body, and we have to go to Albania, now. He has a…a summoning rune, and it…” With a frustrated sigh, she said something she would swiftly regret with the later clarity of hindsight. “Please, sir, cast _legilimens_. It will be faster.”

Dumbledore looked at her for the first time since she had begun speaking, his light blue eyes grave over his spectacles, and lifted his wand. “ _Legilimens_ ,” he incanted, and Lily had the sensation of her mind being swallowed whole. She struggled not to recede from the scope of Dumbledore’s magic delving into her mind, but she did press her own fears and history firmly into the furthest recesses of her thoughts and put the events and conversations and conclusions of the past months at the forefront, hoping for the best.

Her knees were weak by the time Dumbledore withdrew, and she leaned heavily against a desk. She was cognizant of Dumbledore waving his wand and dissolving Severus’s advanced wards as though they were mere cobwebs, then he was hovering over her with a credible look of concern.

“I will go to Albania, dear girl. I do not think you are fit to apparate such a distance in one step, where as I have nearly my full reserves to hand.” He hesitated, looking at Professor Quirrell. “I fear you must stay here and look over the Professor; I will take this child to the hospital wing and get word to Professor Snape to exercise caution but make haste to join you at his earliest chance.”

He squeezed her shoulder, met her eyes until she nodded, and then disappeared back through the doorway in a blur of twinkling fabric, ducking automatically so that his hat did not connect with the top of the doorframe. He gathered the Slytherin child into his arms and strode out of sight.

Feeling dizzy, Lily grasped for a chair and staggered the few steps necessary to sink into it, burying her face in her hands. Quirrell moaned, and she gazed at him through a gap in her fingers long enough to observe that he did not intend to regain consciousness for the moment, then closed her eyes again. She had been foolhardy to invite Dumbledore into her mind, a place where she had harbored suspicions and mistrust of the man himself for so many years. But weighed against the idea of delaying a pursuit of Voldemort, in the moment she had felt she had no choice. Now she could only hope that Dumbledore had not peered into the portions of her memories and opinions into which he had not been invited. Hope, not trust.

Several times she had to force herself to keep from springing from the chair and rushing upstairs to witness Harry’s ritual herself. It was only her considerable faith in the integrity of the controlled environment she had just evaluated, and certainty that Madame Pomfrey was a more proficient healer than Lily could ever hope to be herself, that kept her in her chair. Still, the uncertainty made her miserable. Rituals, even as simple as those a handful of first-years could generate, were fraught with risk, and she never would have conceded to Harry’s participation had she thought she would be further than an arm’s length from the boundary while it was going on, poised to intervene if need be.

Watching over Quirrell was necessary, of course. He was an unexpected breed of enemy, to be sure, but he had proven to be a serious threat. Under less taxing conditions, the idea of finding a threat to the freedom of the wizarding world in the ranks of academia might have made Lily smile.

Lily wasn’t sure how much time had gone by before she heard footsteps in the corridor – someone, she mused, with a very long, sure stride – and stood up shakily just as Severus entered the room. “What the bloody…” he began, seeing Quirrell, then fell silent when his wide eyes turned to Lily. He strode forward and cupped her elbows; he smelled like some kind of foreign herbs and the harsher aroma of strong soap, Lily thought, as she blinked at the center of his chest. “Are you all right?” He sounded gruff and a little out of breath. Probably from the long walk, Lily supposed.

“He was possessing Quirrell,” she said. “I wasn’t sure, but I thought it was true. Should have told you.”

“Are you all right?” Severus said again, his hands shaking as they slid up her biceps, settled on her shoulders and gave her a gentle, but insistent shake. Lily looked up at his face, alarmingly close to hers, and stepped back. His hands slid off of her arms and hung at his sides.

“I’m fine. Albus went after him. After the dark lord, or what’s left of him. His soul. Is Harry…?” She looked at the door in sudden desperation.

“Go,” Severus said. “I will…secure Professor Quirrell. You can explain later.”

Lily was too raw to filter herself. She looked at Severus with open gratitude, and seized his hand for a brief moment as she passed him. Then she sprinted out into the corridor and up the stairs toward the Great Hall.

When Lily arrived, it was to applause, and a startled-looking McGonagall instructing the contest’s victors – apparently not Harry’s team – to shake hands with the runners-up. It was only after a long moment of confused desperation that Lily, seeing the four unfamiliar children reach out and move their hands up and down again and again, realized that Harry and his teammates were invisible.

Sirius and Remus, catching sight of her, waved excitedly. Lily smiled, hollow at missing the show, but grateful for the capacity of pensieves and the sure knowledge that at least two persons in the audience had been rapt throughout Harry’s ritual. Hopefully, she mused, they had watched the other team just as closely; she would be very interested to see the ritual that earned first place over a secondary effect of invisibility. Harry was coming back into focus, grinning and hugging the teammate in a Ravenclaw tie, and Lily’s fond stare was only drawn from him when Draco Malfoy casually conjured a ball of fire and tossed it to a petite girl with a cloud of brown curls who could only be Hermione Granger. Lily snuck a glance at the strained smiles of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, but didn’t have time to draw any conclusions before Harry was vaulting into her arms.

“You’re here!” He was still a little hazy at the edges when she smiled down at him, but reassuringly solid in her arms.

“I think you were robbed,” she said, grinning, and reluctantly let him go, counting herself lucky to get even a brief embrace in front of most of his friends and classmates. Her hands itched to smooth out his impossible hair, but she forced them into her pockets instead. “Amazing work, Harry. I’m so proud of you.”

He was already flushed with excited pride, but his cheeks turned a deeper red at that. “I think McGonagall was right, letting Neville overdose on the potion to get an unintended effect probably _was_ breaking the rules.” He shrugged easily, and Lily’s relief was abruptly tempered by horror. Not ready to confess that she had missed Harry’s ritual, she decided admonishments would come later, after she got the full story out of Sirius and Remus. Weary, she let Harry have her hand and tow her into the midst of the excitement.

“To the winners,” McGonagall was saying, and by the way she was looking around Lily estimated that the staff had expected Dumbledore to announce and present the prize. McGonagall cleared her throat. “Quiet down, students!” She picked up a small velvet pouch from a table, withdrew the contents, then unshrunk them until they were revealed itself to be four scrolls tied with the glossy magical ribbon of a binding contract. “To the winners,” she repeated, “universal summer apprenticeship endorsements from the Minister for Magic himself.”

Lily’s brows rose, and she saw similar expressions of shock on Sirius and Remus’s faces. The recipients of those scrolls could have the apprenticeship of their choice; a Minister’s endorsement was automatically binding, and Lily had never heard of anyone receiving one in such a context. With dawning understanding, she studied Narcissa and Lucius anew, and found their expressions largely unchanged from the last time she had looked, though Narcissa had made a bad attempt at feigned surprise in the line of her brows and the parting of her lips.

Interesting.

“Jeez,” Harry said, sounding so American Lily laughed.

“Maybe next time,” she said lightly, “you won’t risk Neville’s life.”

“Mom,” Harry protested. “The potion is completely nonlethal no matter what you do with it, or it couldn’t have been on the list. Remember, no poisons.” He was watching his year mates receive their scrolls with a somewhat wistful expression. Lily nudged him.

“You should go be with your friends. You’ll feel better.” She meant it literally. She imagined those four would be practically inseparable for at least a few days, until the bonds began to wane. “I need to talk to your uncles.” She caught Sirius’s eye in that moment, and whatever he saw in her expression had him elbowing Remus and heading her way. Harry intercepted them briefly and Remus touched his head the way Lily had wanted to, though Harry gently and self-consciously batted his hands away, laughing.

Lily drew them into a corridor and told them about Albania, and Quirrell in Snape’s brewing room, and Dumbledore and the legilimency. Sirius paled at that, and Remus frowned. By the end of her recounting, they were each holding one of her arms, Sirius grasping her tightly by the forearm and Remus petting her hand. Her voice remained steady until she reached the end of the retelling, swallowed, and added, “I missed Harry’s ritual.”

“Pensieve!” Sirius declared, with a broad smile that went out like a light when his attention was drawn to something behind Lily and over her head.

She turned, shaking off her friends’ touch, and was not surprised to find Severus standing in the shadows of the corridor beyond them. His face had a cool stillness that she hadn’t seen before, but had no trouble attributing to the presence of Sirius and Remus.

“Madame Pomfrey has seen to the student and is evaluating Professor Quirrell,” he said levelly. “He has not regained consciousness.”

“I should find Albus…” Lily began.

“No – ”

“I don’t think…”

“ – Lil – ”

The three men seemed startled by the combined volume of their voices, and fell quiet again, though Sirius had his hand on Lily again, this time on her shoulder. She contained the urge to snarl at them and disapparate on the spot, but only because she knew she was no match for the anti-apparition wards that shrouded Hogwarts.

“Then, where is Quirrell? I want to have a word with him as soon as he regains consciousness.”

Severus met her eye, but his chilly expression didn’t thaw. “It would be apt to wait for Professor Dumbledore’s instructions in that respect, I think.”

The embers of Lily’s temper thus stoked, she clenched her hands into fists. “Professor Dumbledore failed to discover that one of his teachers was going about with Voldemort’s soul in his head,” she said through a clenched jaw, satisfied by how Severus flinched at the sound of Voldemort’s forbidden name. “My faith in his control of the situation is – understandably, I think – shaken.”

“He is the Headmaster, nonetheless,” Severus insisted. “Trust me when I say that Professor Quirrell will still be here when Professor Dumbledore returns.”

“Indeed,” came Dumbledore’s voice as he joined them, entering through the Great Hall. His generally light air was dampened enough that Lily knew immediately he had found nothing in Albania. “Let us all go together to pay Professor Quirrell a visit.”

Unfortunately, Professor Quirrell was unconscious on a cot in a deeply warded room in the dungeons, and according to a flustered but grim Promfrey, was unlikely to emerge from that state in the near future. Sirius and Remus, expected to collect Zack after lunch, reluctantly departed only after Lily repeatedly assured them she would contact them that evening and submit to their interrogations at that time. Severus’s steady attention was weighing on Lily, and it was impatiently that she asked him to give her a private moment with the Headmaster. Dumbledore, his equilibrium unaffected by the revelations of the day, conducted her to his office, but even after the long walk up the staircase to his office Lily had no idea how to start the conversation she wanted to have.

“I was quite impressed to hear the secondary effect achieved by our Harry,” Dumbledore said, startling her by broaching the topic without her insistence. Of course, the result was that she was thrown entirely off balance yet again, so she doubted his remark was without strategy.

“He seems to have assembled an innovative team,” she allowed. “When I began to suspect that Quirrell was a death eater, I had thought that the competition was Quirrell’s invention, and meant to undermine Harry in his house.”

“Ah, not at all, not at all,” Dumbledore corrected in his kind way. “It was entirely my idea.”

Controlling her reaction to the open admission, Lily strained to consider its implications as quickly as possible. Arriving at the most likely answer, she said slowly, “Your idea, for Harry to form connections with the other houses.”

“Well, for all the children, certainly, but Harry…well, as you and I have long known, Harry has a special purpose. If he were entrenched fully in the culture of Slytherin house…” Dumbledore shrugged eloquently, and Lily seethed.

“I am surprised,” she managed at last, “that you are being so open with your belief in Harry’s ‘purpose.’ I thought I made it clear that if you forced your impression of his destiny on him, I would immediately remove him from Hogwarts.”

“You made it very clear that you intended to do so under those circumstances, yes.”

“And do you dispute that I have every right, as his mother, to take him back to the US with me today, and never let him near you?” She hadn’t meant to shout, and she so rarely did, but here they were.

“Not at all.”

“Then you’re…what…forcing my hand, because you think you can find us anywhere? Exert your influence no matter how far we go?”

“Lily – please, listen to me,” Albus leaned over his desk, his eyes intent. “I would be unconscionably stupid to believe I could conceal my beliefs as to Harry’s destiny from you. But just as I know you are far too intelligent to be kept ignorant in that manner, I also trust you will realize that there is not a safer place for Harry than Hogwarts, nor a better environment to prepare him for what he will one day face.”

Lily set her jaw, but before she could grasp a response, Dumbledore continued.

“We know, now, that Voldemort lives on. We know what the prophecy provides, and we know the accuracy of a true prophecy such as that one. Harry survived Voldemort when he was at his full strength and Harry was at his most vulnerable. A rational mind like yours cannot deny the inevitable conclusion of all of that evidence, can it?”

“You have protected Harry up until this point as no one else could. James’s sacrifice, and your knowledge of how to best leverage it to shield Harry – but there is more to Voldemort’s threat than the immediate and physical dangers to Harry, as you know, and as the deeper powers in this castle have confirmed.”

Lily had more or less, through a daze of anger and fear and pain, followed Dumbledore, until that last. “Deeper powers?” she echoed.

Dumbledore smiled his kindly smile, and went to the shelf where the Sorting Hat rested. He didn’t remove it from its stand, but he did touch the brim lightly. The Hat, apparently deep in its usual stupor, didn’t react.

“There is a misconception that every student here is easily divisible into one of the four houses, ignoring the obvious fact that humans are much more complicated than that. The Hat’s magic is considerable, if restrained in its scope. The blood of Godric Gryffindor created its magic just as it enhanced his sword, and in the hands of a sufficiently determined and talented wizard, the might of its precognition and its psychic forces could be truly terrible. No one knows for certain, as the truth is lost to time, but in the years since my own sorting and in my time in closer acquaintance with the Hat itself, I have drawn some conclusions of which I am fairly confident.

“First, the Hat considers far more than the student in isolation. The Sorting is dependent on the chemistry of each house, which subtly changes from time to time. An older sibling might sort Ravenclaw, when there is an undercurrent of one-upsmanship alive in that House, and then a younger sibling nearly identical in upbringing and character might sort Slytherin because the Ravenclaws have grown very collaborative while a more venomous set of snakes have graduated and the remaining Slytherin students are then more subdued. The Hat will rarely place a student in a house that would cause true rifts for the student at home, I have found, and when it does that student seems designed to form a special, strong bond among his or her housemates that more than fills the familial void.”

Lily was unable to keep thoughts of her own friends from her mind. James, the consummate Gryffindor, was best friend and brother to troubled Sirius, whose natural character had alienated him from the rest of the Blacks essentially at birth, and whose failure to sort Slytherin had heightened their contempt to a point of intolerance. But he found a new family with James, Remus and – she grimaced – Peter. Remus. Remus the obvious Ravenclaw, but who seemed poised for tragedy under nearly any eventuality, considered on his own. Enter the perfect chemistry of the Marauders to achieve loyalty and magical feats far beyond their years to save him from discovery and disaster.

Her Harry, in Slytherin; her Harry who was haunted by the single betrayal he had committed for personal gain, and that against a near-stranger he had happened to become acquainted with at sleepaway camp. But Harry was the sort to attract the admiration and loyalty of others; he was his father’s son in that way, even if he had Lily’s quick temper. If he could insert himself into the hearts of the next generation of the Light’s enemies, what might the future herald? Or rather, what might be impeded in the future Voldemort envisioned?

Dumbledore watched and waited, as though fully aware of the progression of Lily’s thoughts. When she emerged and looked up at him, she wet her lips.

“I still can’t ever trust you,” she said.

“I know,” Dumbledore replied; sadly, it seemed, though Lily could never be sure what was and wasn’t an act.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, for now! I am writing the next story in the series. When you leave a kudos or comment, you energize my next project more than you can know!


End file.
